Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small sled used to carry equipment or small children and designed to be pulled by a cross-country skier or snowshoer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pool; a pond.
  • noun A Laplanders' traveling-sledge.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small sled, used for man-hauling supplies across snow and ice.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Norwegian pulk, from Sami bulke.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Finnish pulkka.

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Examples

  • As a matter of fact, it is only in the extreme North, among the Lapps, that reindeer are employed for this kind of work; and very few Europeans ever have the opportunity of enjoying a drive in a reindeer "pulk," as the queer sleigh is called.

    Peeps at Many Lands: Norway Nico [Illustrator] Jungman 1893

  • Imagine what it would be like to jump into a boat-like "pulk" all alone -- for there is only room for one -- twist the rein round your wrist, give it a flick, and so away over the waste of snow, watching the great antlers of the deer in front of you, and flinging yourself from side to side to prevent capsizing.

    Peeps at Many Lands: Norway Nico [Illustrator] Jungman 1893

  • A "pulk" of line Cossacks, with their weather-beaten visages, their thick beards, their Circassian caps of black sheepskin, resembling a broad low turban, with a loose crown of yellow or red cloth; their motley coarse frock-coats with six receptacles for ball-cartridges on each breast, like the Circassians; their yaponchas, a short cloak of goatskin with long hair, moveable round the neck to face the wind and rain from any quarter, present a striking spectacle.

    Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia 1856

  • With a simple collar of skin round his neck, a single trace of the same material attached to the "pulk" or sledge, and passing between his legs, and one rein, fastened like a halter about his neck, this intelligent and docile animal is perfectly under the command of an experienced driver, and performs astonishing journeys over the softest snow.

    Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2 William Edward Parry 1822

  • He made a rapid bolt and disappeared, as if he had a pulk of Cossacks in full chase at his heels.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843 Various

  • Then came the level stretch from Nystuen's hill to Dalecarl's, and as they whirled by in the early day, little Carl chanced to peep from a window, and got sight of the Great White Ren in a white pulk with a white driver, just as it is in the stories of the Giants, and clapped his hands, and cried, "Good, good!"

    Animal Heroes Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

  • So the pulk was whirled along like a skiff in a steamer's wake; but there was blood in the Storbuk's eye now; and

    Animal Heroes Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

  • Yet those who live near Jotunheim say that on stormy nights, when the snow is flying and the wind is raving in the woods, there sometimes passes, at frightful speed, an enormous White Reindeer with fiery eyes, drawing a snow-white pulk, in which is a screaming wretch in white, and on the head of the

    Animal Heroes Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

  • Reindeer, and Rol's days were shortened by his own pulk-Ren.

    Animal Heroes Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

  • The pulk turned over, but righted itself, and Borgrevinck would have been thrown out and killed but for the straps.

    Animal Heroes Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

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