Constructed from plastic or wood, toboggans are long and rectangular, often fitting two people.—Heather Balogh Rochfort, Parents, 26 Feb. 2024 For powdery snow, Seymour recommends a toboggan, saucer, or snow tube with a large surface area.—Jessica MacDonald, Travel + Leisure, 12 Dec. 2023 Save on sleds shaped like sleighs, snowmobiles, toboggans, and more.—Nicola Fumo, Peoplemag, 5 Jan. 2024 Snow tubes, toboggans, saucers, and more types of sleds for kids of all ages.—Heather Balogh Rochfort, Parents, 26 Feb. 2024 So his partners made a toboggan out of a tarp and slid him downhill to a flat area where another member of the party had started a bonfire using gasoline and an emergency flare to burn green wood.—Brett French, Idaho Statesman, 31 Jan. 2024 The resort has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, and is home to the Cresta Run (a natural ice skeleton racing toboggan track), an Olympic bobsleigh run (the only natural ice bobsleigh run in the world), and an outdoor Olympic ice rink.—Monica Mendal, Vogue, 14 Feb. 2024 Saucers and snow tubes are usually meant to be ridden solo whereas toboggans can be designed for multi-person use.—Jessica MacDonald, Travel + Leisure, 12 Dec. 2023 The attraction involves riding a ski-lift-type gondola up the mountain, hopping onto a toboggan — basically a sled with wheels — and riding down a metal chute.—Laurel Rosenhall, Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2023
Verb
By the end of their nine-hour workday, the red-jacketed patrollers had tobogganed out multiple knee injuries and a broken ankle, responded to a few crashes with trees and patched one bloody chin.—Karin Brulliard, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Mar. 2023 Brandon Smith bought Legion FC toboggans for himself and his 10-year-old daughter from the merchandise tent.—Cheryl Wray, al, 9 Feb. 2020 The backdrop of snowy evergreens makes the meadow a beautiful place to sled or toboggan.—John Pana, cleveland, 9 Jan. 2020 Cost: See the Cleveland Metroparks’ tobogganing webpage for current information.—John Pana, cleveland, 9 Jan. 2020 When not on assignment, Robbie can be found chasing adventures at home in the heart of the Alps, or photographing rock climbers on via ferrata, tobogganing competitions, and cultural events.—National Geographic, 15 Sep. 2019 Edmond Lam takes his children tobogganing in Edmonton.—Paolo Bosonin, WSJ, 26 Dec. 2018 To The Pathe Archives: Here’s the 1965 world tobogganing championship from Davos.—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 26 Jan. 2018
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'toboggan.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Canadian French tobogan, of Algonquian origin; akin to Micmac tobâgun drag made of skin
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