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Definition 2024


pack_train

pack train

See also: packtrain and pack-train

English

Pack train near Mt Rainier, USA
(A. H. Barnes, c1910)

Alternative forms

Noun

pack train (plural pack trains)

  1. (dated) A procession of beasts of burden, such as horses or mules, laden with freight.
    • 1869, Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, ch. 41:
      Shortly after six, our pack train arrived. . . . We had nineteen serving men and twenty-six pack mules! It was a perfect caravan.
    • 1914, Zane Grey, Light of the Western Stars, ch. 9:
      Here they met a pack-train of burros that came down the mountain trail.
    • 1944 June 12, "Medicine: War-Horse Hospital," Time (retrieved 24 May 2015):
      In Italy's rugged mountains, mules and horses can go where a jeep can not go. . . . Each pack train has its own veterinarian to give first aid.
    • 2003 March 8, Edward Rothstein, "The Photographer Who Found a Way to Slow Down Time," New York Times (retrieved 24 May 2015):
      Muybridge . . . would travel through the Western landscape with as many as four assistants and a pack train to carry his glass negatives and chemical preparations and cameras.

See also