forty-niner
Americannoun
noun
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(sometimes capital) history a prospector who took part in the California gold rush of 1849
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49er. a type of dinghy, designed to be crewed by two people
Etymology
Origin of forty-niner
An Americanism dating back to 1850–55
Explanation
Someone who traveled west during the California Gold Rush was a forty-niner. Although about two billion dollars worth of gold was found during the era, few individual forty-niners struck it rich. The forty-niners got their name from the year they arrived in California. The Gold Rush began the year before, but 1849 was the peak of the mad dash to collect the shiny gold nuggets in the western territory. An estimated 90,000 prospectors traveled to California that year, coming from all over the globe to pan for gold in streams and rivers. A few made their fortunes, and many others settled in the region, which became a state in 1850.
Vocabulary lists containing forty-niner
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.
Kuchan, who’s based in Del Mar, said it’s outside his normal listing area, but he’s leaning into the forty-niner history and the gold rush potential to market the property.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2024
The late Senator George Hearst, father of William Randolph, grizzly forty-niner, poker player, breeder of race horses and cattle, owned a little newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which he regarded as a worthless joke.
From Time Magazine Archive
Lem had come out of the back streets of an eastern city, bringing his brood of tall, silent, savage boys to live upon the land and, like the forty-niner, to be a sport.
From Windy McPherson's Son by Anderson, Sherwood
Dr. Robinson was a prominent "forty-niner," and the leader of the California squatters in the war against the Sutter land claims.
From The Middle Period 1817-1858 by Burgess, John William
He went back to the East some time afterwards, and stayed ten or fifteen years; but he was a real pioneer and "forty-niner" all the same.
From A Summer in a Canyon by Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
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.
