DCHP-1 Online

jumping-off place

• 1 a point on a trail, waterway, etc. where the route changes in nature or direction, marking a new leg of the journey.

  See also: leavings  

  • 1887  (1888)  At last we came to a "jumping off" place, and here the trail turned sharply down. . . .
  • 1934  . . . the village at the rapids' head continued to be the "jumping off place" for the canoe brigades. . . .
  • 1958  Beautiful Tay Bay [is the] jumping-off place for the Tuck harbor. . . .

• 2a Esp. North a place, usually a town, where one leaves the railway or other link with civilization to proceed into the wilderness.

  See also: jumping-off point (def. 1)  jumping-off spot  jumping-off town  jump-off point  kicking-off place  

  • 1903  Were you . . . to be transported direct to it from the heart of the city, you could not fail to recognize it. "The jumping-off place!" you would cry ecstatically, and turn with unerring instinct to the Aromatic Shop.
  • 1951  The end of steel! The jumping-off place! Dawson Creek, British Columbia, was these.
  • 1963  The nearest town is The Pas, in Manitoba, famous as a jumping-off place for Hudson Bay.

• 2b any starting place.

  See also: jumping-off point (def. 2)  

  • c1939  I walked from Carleton Shore to the "jumping-off-place" of the new cable.

• 3 †  any place considered the ultimate in isolated, undeveloped wilderness.

  • 1922  "But I can't see de Lo'd's hand in dis racket. It doan seems nat'ral to me fo' de Lo'd to let King George lose a good an' beau'ful country, an' den gib him sich a jumpin'-off place as dis instead. . . ."
  • 1937  (1964)  Archdeacon Stuck described Herschel Island during the whaling period as "the world's last jumping-off place, where no law existed and no writs ran".