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

See Examples For:

Oregon Trail Oregon trail

Only seven states actually seceded under Buchanan; Lewis and Clark had nothing to do with the Oregon Trail, which is where they say they’re going.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

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

Christian missionaries arrived, heightening cultural tensions while thousands of westward-bound Oregon Trail emigrants streamed through.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 2, 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

Zoe Kazan, a Coen newbie who stars in the Oregon trail chapter “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” prepped for the occasion by joyfully re-watching every Coen brothers movie.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 21, 2018

On the Oregon trail, thru-hikers don’t need to carry much food or water.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 15, 2017

That Oregon trail was 2,000 miles long, and Realist Disney seems determined to make the moviegoer jolt, bolt or Colt his way over every dad-burned mile of it.

From Time Magazine Archive

Across it were laid the Oregon trail, the Mormon trail to Utah, the "Pony Express" route, the Union Pacific Railroad.

From Time Magazine Archive

So the difficulties of the Oregon trail were invariably exaggerated, and immigration from the states systematically discouraged.

From American Men of Action by Stevenson, Burton Egbert