surveyor's chain
Americannoun
noun
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.
Before it could be fairly opened to settlers it must be measured by the surveyor's chain and mapped out so that it would be easy to tell where any tract was located.
From Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) The Romance of Reality by Morris, Charles
The ax and the surveyor's chain, along with the rifle and the hunting-knife, constituted the armorial bearings of the pioneer.
From The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790 by Henderson, Archibald
A surveyor's chain: so called by farmers, who do not like their land should be measured by their landlords.
From 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Grose, Francis
And yet, if a man were to go around the earth with a surveyor's chain, there would seem to be plenty of room for all who are born upon it.
From Crowds A Moving-Picture of Democracy by Lee, Gerald Stanley
He had a compass and surveyor's chain, and hardly a day passed that he was not out on the plantation, running lines and measuring his brother's fields.
From Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln A Book for Young Americans by Baldwin, James
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.
