DCHP-1 Online

swing

• 1 n. North a train of sleighs or freight canoes, so called because they move, or swing, over a certain route in periodic trips.

  See also: swile  

  • 1941  . . . it was the first mechanized swing to be seen here for ten years.
  • 1943  As the swing of silent canoes glided downstream . . . the Indian guide stood erect in the bow. . . .
  • 1956  He would build big thirty-horse barns for every day he would be on the road; he would put the freight through in swings.

• 2 n. North a tractor-drawn train of sleds and cabooses (def. 5), the principal means of transporting freight, supplies, etc. in the Canadian North in winter.

  See also: caboose (def. 5)  cat-swing  cat-train  

  • 1941  Great amazement was shown by the Indians when the Armstrong and Low swing from Flin Flon arrived here [Lac du Brochet, Man.] in March.
  • 1952  Six drivers, two brakemen and a cook make up the crew of a three-tractor "swing" which may be hauling eight or nine sleighs carrying some 100 tons of supplies.
  • 1957  For the last three years the company has sent its swings over ice-covered lakes and snow-covered portages in temperatures often near 50 below zero.
  • 1958  The train is called a "swing"; each swing consists of three or more tractors, each dragging four or five sleighs. One of the sleighs is used as a caboose for eating and sleeping.

• 3 n. West a cowboy who rides well out to the side of a herd to keep the animals from spreading.

  See also: swing-out  

  • 1961  "Weasel Tail, I says to him, you . . . herd 'em with a hundred drags behaind and two hundred swings to the side. . . ."