A long, easy canter or gallop. The word, as a verb, is old; and Mr. Neal’s derivation (1825) will not bear examination.
1825. His [the Indian’s] common pace, when he had any object in view, was a kind of loose, long, lazy trot—like that of the wolf, through a light snow. Wherefore, it is called, in America the Indian “loup.”—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ ii. 5.
1833. On he [the buck] came at an easy lope, until he reached the top of a little knoll about sixty yards from me.—James Hall, ‘The Harpe’s Head,’ p. 38 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1825. “Ride him off, Neddy!” said Peter. Kit put off at a handsome lope.—A. B. Longstreet, ‘Georgia Scenes,’ p. 25.
1848. Away for the Capitol—at what in Indiana we call a long lope—not in full dress, by any means. Were a stranger to meet one of us on the way, he would take him for a messenger despatched for a physician or midwife, or an errand-boy just escaped from contact with the toe of his employer’s boot. Such is the life of a Member of Congress now, compared with that of our predecessors of forty or fifty years ago.—Mr. Wick of Indiana, House of Repr., Aug. 7: Cong. Globe, p. 1117, App.
1849. [They are] accustomed only to the natural gait of the wild horse, the gallop or lope as it is here called.—Theodore T. Johnson, ‘Sights in the Gold Region,’ p. 144 (N.Y.).
1850. Starting at a canter, or “lope,” we dashed forward.—James L. Tyson, ‘Diary in California,’ p. 65 (N.Y.).
1869. The Western man always rides at a lope.—A. K. McClure, ‘Rocky Mountains,’ p. 302.
[For fuller citation see CAYUSE.]
