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Definition of pack animal
: an animal used for carrying packs
Examples of pack animal in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web The donkeys were also smaller than is expected of pack animals.
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Ashley Strickland, CNN, "This Tang Dynasty noblewoman loved playing polo so much, she was buried with her donkeys," 17 Mar. 2020 Some towns have been practically cut off, forcing residents to rely on pack animals and occasional passing cars to get to the nearest city.
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Anatoly Kurmanaev, New York Times, "From Nearly Free to Out-of-Reach: Gasoline’s Crazy Price Swing in Venezuela," 15 May 2020 Analysis also revealed stress on the bones that occurred when the donkeys were alive -- but not the kind of stress typically found in pack animals used for carrying heavy loads.
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Ashley Strickland, CNN, "This Tang Dynasty noblewoman loved playing polo so much, she was buried with her donkeys," 17 Mar. 2020 The bustling Tang capital was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road trade route, and donkeys were frequently used as pack animals.
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Michael Price, Science | AAAS, "‘Polo-obsessed’ Chinese noblewoman buried with her donkey steed," 16 Mar. 2020 William Taylor, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies human-animal relationships, agrees the donkeys in the tomb were not simple pack animals.
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Michael Price, Science | AAAS, "‘Polo-obsessed’ Chinese noblewoman buried with her donkey steed," 16 Mar. 2020 Image Lurie and his pack animal fall in with members of the United States Camel Corps, and many adventures are had.
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Dwight Garner, New York Times, "Téa Obreht Follows Up an Acclaimed Debut With a Visit to the Old West," 9 Aug. 2019 This portion of the novel draws from an obscure chapter in history, involving the United States Camel Corps, a project of the U.S. Army that deployed camels as pack animals to support military operations in the arid Southwest.
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Francisco Cantú, The New Yorker, "Téa Obreht Reimagines the Western," 12 Aug. 2019 While pack animals are available for a fee, the only way down is via a helicopter (long waits often are necessary) or your own two feet.
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Scott Craven, azcentral, "Beyoncé was at Havasupai Falls at the Grand Canyon, and people are angry about it," 11 July 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'pack animal.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for pack animal
The first known use of pack animal was in 1836
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