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forty-niners

Cultural  
  1. Those who flocked to California in 1849 in search of gold, which had been discovered there in 1848. Reportedly, there were about eighty thousand of them.


Example Sentences

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The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848 is one of the defining moments in California history, with roughly 300,000 forty-niners flocking here to make their fortune from the U.S. and abroad.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2024

Several forty-niners glimpsed precious metal as they dragged themselves over the mountains.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 6, 2016

The forty-niners, as they came to be called, and their immediate successors, were rich and poor, old and young.

From Scientific American • Oct. 2, 2015

Mr. Kelley Sr. likes to repeat a piece of wisdom handed down from the forty-niners: it was not the gold miners in California who got rich, it was the people who sold the shovels.

From New York Times • Oct. 15, 2011

Later, when the real forty-niners came, men o' red blood, vigilance committees were organized an' the camps got sort o' human.

From The Boy With the U.S. Miners by Rolt-Wheeler, Francis

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