Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A train, service, or collection of wagons, draft-animals, etc., organized for a special purpose; especially, the collection of wagons, etc., accompanying an army, to convey provisions, ammunition, the sick and wounded, etc.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He was a boy in the same wagon-train coming across the plains.

    CHAPTER VIII 2010

  • Clearly she saw the long wagon-train, the lean, gaunt men who walked before, the youths goading the lowing oxen that fell and were goaded to their feet to fall again.

    CHAPTER VI 2010

  • In marching the column I placed a regiment of infantry at its head, then the wagon-train, then a brigade of infantry -- masking the cavalry behind this brigade.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • The brave shouted something back, in apparent disappointment, turned his pony slightly aside-and then without warning wheeled sharply and, with his mates following suit as smart as guardsmen, made a dart across our rear towards the wagon-train.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • Inquiring who they were and for further details, I was informed that there certainly were in the command two females, that in some mysterious manner had attached themselves to the service as soldiers; that one, an East Tennessee woman, was a teamster in the division wagon-train and the other a private soldier in a cavalry company temporarily attached to my headquarters for escort duty.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • The second day, after marching for hours through vast herds of buffalo, we made Hackberry Creek; but not, however, without several stampedes in the wagon-train, the buffalo frightening the mules so that it became necessary to throw out flankers to shoot the leading bulls and thus turn off the herds.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • But a wagon-train ain't easy; however, when you've committed the capital act, as I have, in the middle of a battle with Borneo head-hunters, you learn to have faith in your star, and persevere until you win through.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • You've learned enough of our travel arrangements to see how difficult it was; indeed, if I had to choose the most inconvenient place I've ever struck for conducting an illicit amour in privacy and comfort, a prairie wagon-train would come second on my list, no question.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • The old Indian trick, and the classic wagon-train tactic, was to wait until the whites emptied their weapons, then charge before they could reload.

    EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON S. C. Gwynne 2010

  • They were all attention-you don't meet many dinner guests, I suppose, who've commanded a wagon-train and learned the lingo from Wootton and Carson, and they probably didn't believe half of it.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

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