pony express
- a former system in the American West of carrying mail and express by relays of riders mounted on ponies, especially the system operating (1860–61) between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California.
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Origin of pony express
An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
postExamples from the Web for pony express
Historical Examples
During 1860, and until the outbreak of the Civil War, Cody lived the arduous life of a pony-express rider.
Buffalo Bill's Spy TrailerColonel Prentiss Ingraham
pony express
- (in the American West) a system of mail transport that employed relays of riders and mounts, esp that operating from Missouri to California in 1860–61
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Pony Express
A system of mail service by relays of riders on horses, established in 1860 between Missouri and California, through the Rocky Mountains. It operated for only a year and a half, until a telegraph line eliminated the need for it.
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Note
An early advertisement for Pony Express riders is well known: “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”
Note
Buffalo Bill (see also BuffaloBill) Cody and Wild Bill Hickok were Pony Express riders in their youth.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.