DCHP-1 Online

mush ((v.)) [< Cdn F marche (donc)! q.v.] Esp. North

• 1 v. imper. move ahead! go on! (a command to sled dogs to advance).

  See also: march ((v.)) (def. 2a)  marche(donc)  mush on  

  • 1897  It is laughable to hear the driver yell, "Mush, Mush," at them, and if they don't get in and dig you generally hear something stronger.
  • 1913  "Mistisi, mush on, you fiend, or I'll break your neck."
  • 1958  Dog sled racing is a sport which is as Canadian as the command "Mush!"
  • 1963  And hurry! Hurry! Before it is too late--mush, mush on--the whip cracks hysterically.

• 2a v. travel by or with a dog-sled.

  • 1862  (1942)  "My dogs are dogs! and we will mouche very likely after all."
  • 1912  He tucked me up warm on the komatik, he hitched up the huskies, and mushed, way up the tickle, and through the soft bush snow, and at sunup we made his winter tilt on Torngak Creek.
  • 1966  There hasn't been so much excitement over sled-dogs in the north since Leonard Sepala mushed through the land of the midnight sun. . .

• 2b v. travel on foot or on snowshoes. See also march, v. (def. 1), musher (def. 1), and mushing (def. 1).

  • 1898  (1930)  You think all the while you are nearing the top, and "mush on," like viewing a ship at sea.
  • 1921  Then she lighted a candle and put on her snowshoes. She mushed across the little space of snow to the men's cabin.
  • 1936  They told me of the mobs that used to mush over the Chilkoot Pass to the Yukon and then on down to the Klondike.
  • 1958  Here [B.C.] a moose mushed along leaving a plowed record of his passing.
  • 1966  I then struck out to mush to the nearest bus stop.

• 2c v. of dogs, pull a sled under the command of a driver.

  • 1898  (1936)  The holder must be ready to "mush" behind the crack of the driver's whip.
  • 1913  . . . he crushed back all the battle-fury in his pounding heart, and mushed as he had never mushed before.
  • 1963  Siberian huskies from nearby Stittsville mushed in hauling authentic sourdough Mr. Yukon in a red flannel shirt and mountain-sheep vest.

• 2d v. mush it, travel by dog-sled; drive a dog team.

  • 1923  I have mushed it in the far north at 40 degrees below.

• 3a v. drive (dogs); urge (a dog team) on by whip and command.

  See also: march ((v.)) (def. 2b)  

  • 1900  Blindly . . . she took the gee-pole and whip, and "mushed" the dogs out on the trail.
  • 1954  A James Oliver Curwood thriller, recently shown at our local theatre, "Back to God's Country", has its points as entertainment but shows drivers mushing dog teams in matters of hours between northern points that are from hundreds to thousands of miles apart.
  • 1965  Another time he mushed a team of wolves down Broadway in New York.

• 3b v. transport by dog-sled.

  • 1953  By the lore of that Northland's legend they "cremated Sam McGee" :/But the man who mushed that frozen corpse I'm a-telling you boys was me.
  • 1962  The old prospectors had already begun to mush their outfits by dog sleds. . . .

• 4 v. Slang leave town; vamoose.

  See also: mush on (def. 3)