DCHP-1 Online

snowmobile [< Snowmobile, a trademark snow + automobile]

• 1 n. a large tracked vehicle designed to carry persons and goods across country over snow and ice.

  See also: bombardier  snow tractor  

  • 1934  . . . this season a . . . Snowmobile is being shipped to Coronation Gulf for inspection work next winter.
  • 1935  Mr. Gibson travelled as far as Kugaryuak by snowmobile, where engine trouble developed and he took to the slower but surer dog-team pending repairs.
  • 1953  In the heart of Moosomin, Bob Fudge has a snowmobile manufacturing plant, possibly the first anywhere. His experimentation period began in the late 1920's. In the early 1930's, when contraction rather than expansion was the rule, he began production. His early work had trials. Just when things were going nicely, a rural municipal convention passed a resolution branding snowmobiles a "menace" to horse-drawn vehicles.
  • 1961  In winter a great deal of timber is transported by snowmobiles and trailers to the depots and waterways. . . .
  • 1963  The snowmobile clattered along the road marked by rows of empty oil drums to the Eskimo village. . . .

• 2 n. a small over-snow vehicle equipped with skis at the front and powered by a motor driving a treaded endless track. [See picture at motor toboggan]

  See also: motor toboggan  

  • 1963  Those who didn't travel to fishing spots by snowmobile or other powered equipment had to go by snowshoe.
  • 1964  These sports-car model snowmobiles cost from $600 to $1,500, depending on power and accessories--which even include mufflers.
  • 1966  I would put the snowmobile down as the greatest single factor in the public use of the winter outdoors. . . .