prairie

[< Cdn F < F]

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

1n.

a meadow.

Quotations

1734

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

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. . . .

2an.

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

1856

. . . I've had to fight with red-skins and grizzly bears, and to chase the buffaloes over miles and miles of prairie. . . .

1911

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.

2bn.

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.

2cn. — North

treeless barren ground; tundra.

1843

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.

2dn.

a vast, barren expanse.

1939

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