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grubstake ((n.))
[grub food + stake]
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
1†n.
an arrangement by which a person or company provides money to outfit a prospector with food and equipment in return for a share (often one half) in any strike the prospector may make; also, the money or supplies involved in such an arrangement.
Quotations
1899
They . . . were determined to return to their old stamping grounds, where any honest prospector can get a grubstake from a speculative city man. . . .
1928
The leader, too embittered to go back into the ministry, borrowed a grubstake and turned prospector.
1958
But Henderson stayed on, lured by Ladue's promise of a grubstake, and for the next two years he stubbornly combed the Indian and its tributaries for gold.
2n. — Fur Trade
an advance in the form of food and other supplies, to be paid for out of the coming season's catch.
See: debt(def. 1)
Quotations
1900
"What fur we keel now? Not enough to pay fer de grub stake."
1963
Trappers are assisted by provision of grubstakes and equipment to enable them to reach and remain on their traplines during periods of peak production when the pelts are prime.
3n.
the money or the means to obtain food and other necessaries for a certain period of time.
See: stake
Quotations
1897
. . . no place is very rich, but no place is very poor; every man can make a "grub stake" (that is enough to feed and clothe him for a year), which is more than I can say of the other places I have been in.
1912
Some spend their life going from one camp to another as labourers, others are homesteaders and farmers, and are here for a few months to make a "grub-stake."
1936
He seemed quite cheerful over it all so I gave him back his job and he started to amass another "grub stake."
1963
My partner and I relocated a claim at that first midnight session that afterward turned out to be our grubstake, our bank, so to speak. . . . We could always go out to the claim if a grubstake was wanted and pound out an ounce a day; that is, $16.00.
4an.
a store or supply of provisions.
Quotations
1909
The men who can't remember when they learned to swing a pack,
Or in what lawless land the quest began;
The solitary seeker with his grub-stake on his back,
The restless buccaneer of pick and pan.
The men who can't remember when they learned to swing a pack,
Or in what lawless land the quest began;
The solitary seeker with his grub-stake on his back,
The restless buccaneer of pick and pan.
1912
He built a fire on the bank and spread his meager grub-stake in a score of dirty little canvas bags to dry beside it.
1953
The Indian agency will help this pair to obtain new equipment and grubstake and clothing; no old age pension for Maurice, even if he is 68!
4bn.
the food itself.
Quotations
1923
So he kicked over the traces of respectable conformity, and took to the woods with an outfit of seasoned "sour-doughs," wearing the clothes they wore and dividing the high cost and the tough chewing of their grub-stake.
5n.
a mining claim providing a modest income; a claim that produces a relatively small amount of gold.
See: grubstake claim
Quotations
1909
It's wine and painted women and the things that do me hurt,/Till I crawl back, beggared, broken to the Wild./ Till I crawl back, sapped and sodden, to my grubstake and my tent . . . .
1958
Thomas Latheen had seventy-five grub stakes here and went to Victoria to get permission to build a tunnel one mile long, as in Denver, Colorado.