Jump To:

• Oregon Trail
  Oregon Trail

  noun

  a route used during the U.S. westward migrations, especially in the period from 1840 to 1860, starting in Missouri and ending in Oregon. About 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long.
• Oregon trail
  Oregon trail

  noun

  an early pioneering route across the central US, from Independence, W Missouri, to the Columbia River country of N Oregon: used chiefly between 1804 and 1860. Length: about 3220 km (2000 miles)

Oregon Trail

American  

noun

1. a route used during the U.S. westward migrations, especially in the period from 1840 to 1860, starting in Missouri and ending in Oregon. About 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long.

---

Oregon trail British  

noun

1. an early pioneering route across the central US, from Independence, W Missouri, to the Columbia River country of N Oregon: used chiefly between 1804 and 1860. Length: about 3220 km (2000 miles)

---

Oregon Trail Cultural  

1. The route over which settlers traveled to Oregon in the 1840s and 1850s; trails branched off from it toward Utah and California. The Oregon Trail passed through what is now Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Idaho.

---

Example Sentences

It’s more like The Oregon Trail for podcasting, but with less dysentery.

From Slate • Apr. 5, 2026

Gilbert was retired from a career in state government and was running the Oregon Trail Trader gun shop with her partner in La Grande when she first heard about the Antelope Ridge wind farm.

From Salon • Aug. 17, 2025

Margelony says fuchsias have been grown in the Pacific Northwest since the 1850s, when a 13-year-old girl traveling with her family along the Oregon Trail carried plants with her to their new home.

From Seattle Times • May 13, 2023

Born between 1977 and 1983, they call themselves Xennials or the Oregon Trail Generation, named for the 1985 version of the educational game many children encountered on a clunky Apple IIE.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 29, 2023

Settlers arrived—mostly wayward souls and eccentrics who had meandered off the Oregon Trail.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson