To enclose or capture.
1860. I want to “corel” you for a little chat.—Knick. Mag., lv. 100 (Jan.).
1860. I wish you to build a stockade large enough for corraling your cattle outside the town.—Brigham Young in Cache Valley, June 9: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ viii. 290.
1860. Before we got corralled, and the cattle chained, two of our men were shot down.—Letter to Oregon Argus, Nov. 24.
1869. So revolutionary has she been, in spite of divine commands from the very oracles of Heaven, that she had to be “corraled” in a house by herself; and there she rules in her own boisterous, obstinate way, and makes the Prophet bow at her feet, instead of becoming the meek, submissive wife the Church demands of all on pain of eternal punishment.—A. K. McClure, ‘Rocky Mountains,’ pp. 170–1.
1869. In all classes, from the most learned to the least favored in letters, the same expressive Westernisms are in common use. If a man is embarrassed in any way, he is “corraled.” The Indians “corral” men on the plains; the storms “corral” tourists in the mountains; the criminal is “corraled” in prison; the tender swain is “corraled” by crinoline; the business-man is “corraled” by debt or more enterprising and successful competitors; the unfortunate politician is “corraled” by the mountaineers, the gulchmen, or the settlers; the minister is “corraled” when he is called to become the pastor of a congregation; and the gambler “corrals” the dust of the miner. Indeed, the application of the term is almost as indefinite as it is universal.—Id., p. 210.
1878. They got the wagons corraled and dug rifle-pits.—J. H. Beadle, ‘Western Wilds,’ p. 306. (Italics in the original.)
1888. We will corral some of the ice-cream.—N.Y. Times, Dec. 30. (N.E.D.)
