To glide down an ice-path on a “bob-sled.” Hence COASTING. The path itself used to be called a COAST.
1775. Some of our School lads … improved the coast from Sherburn’s Hill down to School Street…. Their fathers before ’em had improved it as a coast from time immemorial.—Letter in ‘Proceedings of the Mass. Historical Society,’ 1865, p. 398. (N.E.D.)
1832. Coasting is another winter pastime, in which, as in many other games, the labor seems to be at least equal to the pleasure.—S. G. Goodrich, ‘System of Universal Geography,’ p. 201 (Boston). (Italics in the original.)
1836. Skate, if you like; “coast,” if you are boy enough.—Boston Pearl, Jan. 9.
1854.
| New England! aye, New England! my glory and my boast! | |
| Adown thy hills, when I’s a boy, O how I used to coast. | |
| Thy pleasant fields of living green, methinks I see them now, | |
| And I upon my father’s farm a-riding horse to plow. | |
| Thou art the land of liberty, of valleys, and of hills, | |
| A land of men, where thought is free, of brooks and running rills. | |
| ’Tis there they keep Thanksgiving Days, and like to have them come; | |
| When the long circles cluster round, I wish I was to-hum. Springfield Republican, n.d. |
1909. Coasting is fun for everybody…. In the frosty night, grown men and women fill the flying “bobs” that go whizzing down the icy incline, swift as any toboggan on the hills of Davos Platz or St. Moritz.—N.Y. Ev. Post, Jan. 28.
1909. As a consequence of a coasting accident, six professors and students were injured.—Id., Feb. 18.
