Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A newcomer to Alaska or the Yukon Territory; a tenderfoot.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun someone new to
Alaska or theYukon . Originally a reference to the Gold Rush newcomers.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The cold white silence of the Yukon Wilderness plays savage tricks on the minds of cheechako and sourdough alike.
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He remains cool, gathers dry twigs and branches, takes out his matches and builds his fire under a tree and ... well, we sourdoughs know the consequences of that foolish cheechako act.
“. . .all his race rose up before him in a mighty phantasmagoria. . .” 2008
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Sitka Charley tells this story in – 68 weather, in camp with Bettles, Prince, Louis Savoy, and a young cheechako.
“Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins.” 2008
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Since I was still a cheechako (that's Alaskan lingo for greenhorn), I had failed to realize that the sporadic forward movement of the glacier could, like a colossal bulldozer, push against the frozen surface of the lake with unimaginable force.
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We did not have much currency, or, as they called it there, cheechako money -- cheechako being the Indian word for "tenderfoot."
The New Yukon 1922
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So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin
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The supercilious cheechako might designate them high,
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Mebbe we meet dose cheechako 'comin' in an 'dey holler:' Hallo,
The Winds of Chance Rex Ellingwood Beach 1913
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He is a genial liar, this Yukoner, and for the ordinary lies of life he needs make no effort; they roll from his lips as regularly and as smoothly as do compliments from the lips of a sour dough man in conversation with a cheechako girl.
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The greenhorn is seen in a rarely heard word of Chinook ancestry, cheechako, and an Algonquian term, sometimes used for cayuse, recognizes friendship in nitchie, also rare.
skipvia commented on the word cheechako
A newbie or tenderfoot, specifically applied to newcomers to Alaska or the Yukon Territories in Canada. From chinook jargon. Also see sourdough.
November 5, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word cheechako
Usage note can be found on mangeur de lard.
September 17, 2008