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pony express

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noun

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.

Origin of pony express

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for pony express

post

Examples from the Web for pony express

Historical Examples of pony express

  • During 1860, and until the outbreak of the Civil War, Cody lived the arduous life of a pony-express rider.

    Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer

    Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

British Dictionary definitions for pony express

pony express

noun

(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
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 in Culture

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.

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.