Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

However, the Army Service came to our rescue with some old friends, the "forty-niners."

From Five Months at Anzac A Narrative of Personal Experiences of the Officer Commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force by Beeston, Joseph Lievesley

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training