sleigh. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

sleigh

PRONUNCIATION:	sl
NOUN:	A light vehicle mounted on runners and having one or more seats, usually drawn by a horse over snow or ice.
INTRANSITIVE VERB:	Inflected forms: sleighed, sleigh·ing, sleighs To ride in or drive a sleigh.
ETYMOLOGY:	Dutch slee, variant of slede, from Middle Dutch slde.
OTHER FORMS:	sleigher —NOUN
OUR LIVING LANGUAGE:	Sleigh is a familiar word in American English, having entered the language from Dutch by 1700. The Dutch were among the earliest colonists in North America, and it is thus no surprise that some very common words come from their language. Boss, bush, and landscape are all originally Dutch words that became established in English by the end of the 17th century. In the succeeding centuries we got such words as dope, knickerbocker, snoop, spook, waffle, and cookie. Even a term practically synonymous with American, namely Yankee, was in all probability originally a Dutch word for a Dutch pirate. See Note at Yankee.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.