coureur de bois
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of coureur de bois
Literally, “runner, hunter of (the) woods”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Montreal, he entertained them with a stream of jokes, persuaded the King to sing the rollicking song of the coureur de bois, Alouette.
From Time Magazine Archive
There! madame, have I not drawn the outline of the comedy cleverly enough, for a mere coureur de bois, a mere Canadian?”
From The Span o' Life A Tale of Louisbourg & Quebec by McIlwraith, Jean Newton
When I came back to the settlements at Quebec I was seized for a coureur de bois, a free trader.
From The Mississippi Bubble by Hough, Emerson
Yet it would be false coloring to paint the half-savage coureur de bois as a romantic lover of nature.
From The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index by Lodge, Henry Cabot
In outward appearance he was a typical B.C. specimen of the obsolete "coureur de bois" of eastern Canada during the seventeenth century.
From Skookum Chuck Fables Bits of History, Through the Microscope by Cumming, R. D. (Robert Dalziel)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
