DCHP-1 Online

run ((n.))

• 1 n. Northwest a fast-moving stretch of water over a relatively smooth bed.

  See also: riffle ((n.)) (def. 1c)  

  • 1796  (1911)  There is a place called "the run" near the locks, which is like going down the stream of an overshot mill, and I really thought we should never have risen out of it.
  • 1856  . . . just as he said it, we came in sight of the first run, foaming and boiling like a kettle of robbiboo.
  • 1928  As I had sensed from mid-stream, the run could have been made in safety down either side, but only by putting in at the right places above.

• 2 n. Hist. a buffalo hunt in which the animals were pursued on horseback rather than impounded.

  See also: buffalo run (def. 1)  

  • 1858  (1860)  . . . fresh [buffalo] tracks were seen, and skulls and bones in large numbers, the remains of last year's "run". . . .
  • 1872  (1877)  The half-breed would not exchange the pleasure of one such "run" for a whole year's profitable farm work.
  • 1913  I was told they each killed twenty-eight buffalo in a run.
  • 1963  After a run, their women had hard days of work before them, cutting and drying the meat. . . .

• 3 n. Lumbering a specific collection of logs being floated downstream at high water from the timber limits to a mill or shipping point.

  See also: drive ((n.)) (def. 1a)  

  • 1894  The different logging gangs had combined their forces for the drive, or run, and every one was on the alert to see that his part of the work was done to the best of his ability.
  • 1959  When the first 'run' is over, some of the men go back upstream and collect any of the logs left behind that bear their company's stamp.

• 4 n. the annual thrusting forward and expansion of river ice during break-up, with special reference to the St. Lawrence River, where the phenomenon was accompanied with much flooding and considerable danger.

  See also: ice-run  

  • 1900  We struck the Yukon just behind the first ice-run . . . and the tribe only a quarter of an hour behind. But that saved us; for the second run broke the jam above and shut them out.

• 5 n. Nfld See quotes.

  • 1918  [We] had turned in from sea through the last "run" or passage between islands.
  • 1952  Between [the islands] and the mainland, and among the islands themselves, is a veritable maze of waterways to which Newfoundlanders have applied a number of curious geographic names such as "tickle," "run," "reach," "arm" and "sound.

• 6 n. of animals, a period of abundance, from a trapper's or hunter's point of view.

  See also: run ((v.)) (def. 6)  

  • 1937  . . . although the brief run of white fox around Churchill appeared to be over, tracks in the snow out here showed there were yet some foxes in the country.

• 7 † n. Maple Industry the flow of sap from the trees in a sugar bush during the late winter or early spring.

  See also: sap run  

  • 1826  (1916)  In the afternoon there was a fair run . . . the large kettle had been slung and the fire started.
  • 1853  I found it necessary to situp all night and drive the kettles, in consequence of the large accumulation of sap from two good runs.
  • 1959  This first "run of sap" makes the best syrup, and so is usually sold in this liquid form.