DCHP-2

prairie [< Cdn F < F] DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• 1 n.

  a meadow.

  • 1734  (1866)  General Census of New France.--1734 . . . Prairies 17,657.
  • 1760  The channel which separates the two islands is called La Riviere des Prairies, or, the River of the Meadows. . . .
  • 1800  (1922)  Yesterday and to-day, our way has been through prairies, interrupted occasionally, by small groves of wood.
  • 1870  The country is . . . thickly wooded, except about the terraces of the Fraser, and occasional small prairies. . . .
  • 1952  The Chinook wind was singing over those high prairies. . . .

• 2a n.

  extensive rolling grasslands, specifically those found in western Canada; also, the region covered by these grasslands.

  See also: plain(s) (def. 1)  prairie country  prairie region  Prairies (def. 1)  Prairie ((n.))  

  • 1856  . . . I've had to fight with red-skins and grizzly bears, and to chase the buffaloes over miles and miles of prairie. . . .
  • 1911  (1914)  The country north-west of Edmonton is not prairie, such as one finds in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Southern Alberta.
  • 1965  The first of the trunk roads takes off . . . round the foothills' flanks to the prairie beyond.

• 2b n.

  the grassy plains of Western Canada collectively.

  • 1872  He could remember when vast herds of buffalo covered the prairie from the foot of the Rocky Mountains to Fort Garry.
  • 1960  My living on the prairie was a full course I could not get in any college in any land.

• 2c n. — North

  treeless barren ground; tundra.

  • 1843  (1955)  Although prairie, it is not quite destitute of underwood. . . .
  • 1951  I went for a long walk on the barren prairie back of the rocky beach.

• 2d n.

  a vast, barren expanse.

  • 1939  (1951)  He [a seal] was lying beside a crack, enjoying the evening sunlight that was gilding the great motionless prairie of floe ice.