DCHP-1 Online

ranger

• 1 n. Nfld a small seal, Phoca vitulina, common on the East Coast.

  See also: harbo(u)r seal  

  • 1771  (1792)  At one o'clock this morning the rinders returned . . . and informed me that they . . . had killed an otter, a porcupine, and a ranger.
  • 1861  The next kind is a small and beautiful animal, called the Ranger, which remains on the coast all the winter, and is sometimes found about the bays during the summer months.
  • 1958  The dark markings are responsible for another name often applied to him--leopard seal." To most fishermen he is known as the "bay seal," but in Newfoundland he bears the unusual name "ranger."

• 2a † n. Hist. a soldier in a regiment originally trained and equipped for defending the frontier against Indian raids.

  See also: Canadian Ranger  Voltigeur (def. 1)  

  • This term has been preserved in the names of certain Canadian regiments, as the Queen's Rangers, the Simcoe Rangers, etc.

  • 1793  A few days ago, the first division of his Majesty's corps of Queens Rangers left Queenstown for Toronto (now York), and proceeded in Batteaux round the head of Lake Ontario. . . .
  • 1827  He formerly belonged to the old Queen's or Simcoe's Rangers, and when they were reduced at the Peace of 1778, he remained in New Brunswick.
  • 1922  A. E. Dodman . . . was presented with a silver cigarette case by the officers and men of the 172nd Rocky Mountain Rangers. . . .
  • 1942  The Micmacs had called my father Hawk . . . since the days when he and his rangers fought them up and down the length of Nova Scotia.
  • 1958  After serving with distinction, the rangers became part of the British Regular Army, until disbanded in New Brunswick in October 1783. In 1791 the corps was reorganized by Simcoe and taken to the new province of Upper Canada, of which he was Lieutenant Governor.

• 2b n. Hist. a member of the Labrador Ranger Force.

  See also: Labrador Ranger Force  

  • 1954  In 1935, Newfoundland introduced a Ranger Force, modelled very closely on the plan of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Each ranger wore as his badge a caribou head. . . .
  • 1965  . . . at the outset of its [Newfoundland Commission of Government] rule, it had created a rural police force to maintain order and uphold the laws of Newfoundland in every part of the territory, and at various outposts on the Labrador coast it had stationed "Rangers" from that force, three in the northern region and five in the southern.

• 3 n. Maritimes, Obs. a variety of the black bear. See quote.

  See also: black bear  

  • 1846  The common Ant Bear has very short legs, and is consideted less destructive among the stock than the long-legged ranger, with a brown nose and a white spot in his breast.

• 4 n. a government official engaged in the prevention and control of forest fires.

  See also: fire-ranger  forest ranger (See 1955 quote)  

  • 1837  The Ranger would require to be particularly well qualified for the execution of his duty . . . he would require to be an active, persevering, enterprising traveller, equally expert as a woodsman and a canoe man.
  • 1898  The protection given to the deer has attracted many more wolves to the Park, and the rangers have opened active war upon them.
  • 1965  . . . protective efforts--be they on the part of rangers . . . or the public at large--remain a constant necessity. . . .