sleigh

Etymology

It is borrowed from Dutch slee,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} a contracted form of slede (“sled”),^{[2][3][4][8][9]} from Middle Dutch slede,^[10][5][11] from Proto-Germanic *slidô.^[11] The word began in North American English.^[2][3][6][7] Barnhart finds an earlier, separate borrowing in Middle English, scleye in Mandeville's “Travels” (about 1400), probably from a variant of the Middle Dutch word.^[4] The Dutch word is related to sled and sledge,^{[3][6][7][11]} and further to slide.^[11][12] Skeat called the English spelling ill-made, since the word never had a final guttural.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A sledge for passengers, usually drawn by horses: 1703, written slay, in Samuel Sewall's diary.^[2][4][3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word came from the Dutch settlers of North America,^[2][3][7] and the spelling sleigh is first found in 1768.^[4][14] From 1748 it was also a sledge for carrying goods over ice or snow,^[2] and in military use from 1797 a wheelless carriage for a heavy gun.^[2][6] The verb, to travel in a sleigh, followed in 1728, also in Sewall;^[2][3][4] sleigh-ride is recorded by 1770 and sleigh-bell by 1796.^[3] In whaling, from 1874, the sleigh was the bone of a sperm whale's upper jaw.^[2] In British English the word is still mainly a name for a sledge.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – scleye, an early borrowing, in Mandeville's “Travels”.^[4]
• 1703 – a horse-drawn sledge for passengers, spelled slay.^[2][4]
• 1728 – verb, to travel or ride in a sleigh.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster dates the verb to about 1729.^[5]
• 1748 – a sledge for carrying goods over ice or snow.^[2]
• 1768 – the spelling sleigh.^[4]
• 1770 – sleigh-ride.^[3]
• 1797 – military, a wheelless carriage for a heavy gun.^[2][6]
• 1874 – the upper jawbone of a sperm whale.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vehicle on runners, usually drawn by horses, for carrying people or goods over snow or ice: They rode home through the drifts in an open sleigh.^[5][2][8]
2. (dialectal) A child's sled.^[5]
3. A part of a gun carriage that supports the cannon and slides back with it in recoil.^[5][2][6]

Verb

1. To drive or travel in a sleigh.^[5][2][8]

Word family

• sleigher
• sleigh bed
• sleigh bell

Related words

• sled
• sledge
• slide

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins