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bushwhacker
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
1n.
a person who takes up land in the bush, clears it, and makes a home there, back from the centres of civilization; backwoodsman.
See: backwoodsman
Quotations
1845
The bush whacker is nothing of the "bog trotter" in his appearance. . . .
<i>c</i>1902
And were the men carving a way through the wilderness only the bushwhackers who have pioneered other forest lands?
1959
It is on the subject of pioneers--trailbreakers, bushwhackers, sodbusters, homesteaders--that [he] waxes most eloquent. . . .
2n.
a country person; a rough, unrefined backwoodsman.
Quotations
1833
There are, perhaps, few children of the same age in Halifax that read better than this little bush-whacker of Tatamagouche.
1887
There was a lot of country fellows, regular bushwhackers, laying around . . . asking us all sorts of questions. . . .
1916
. . . I am not sure whether it was one of Macdonald's plugs or another sort . . . which furnished bushwhacker wags with the bogus five-cent pieces that sometimes dropped into the collection plate.
3n.
a person living in the bush and familiar with its ways.
See: bushman(def. 2)
Quotations
1910
"Come on, this old bush-whacker ought to be glad to see us, if it's only to hear a voice that isn't his own!"
1963
[The Canada jay] is the companion and familiar of the backwoodsman, the bushwhacker, the lumber jack and the trapper.