A smooth long piece of wood used instead of a wheel when snow is on the ground.
1765. To be sold, a light fashionable four-wheeler Carriage, with Runners to the same.—Boston-Gazette, July 22. (N.E.D.)
1781. [Also called a slider.] [The sleigh-box] hangs on four posts standing on two steel sliders, or large scates.—Samuel Peters, ‘History of Connecticut,’ p. 320 (Lond.).
1789. [Carioles] are raised upon what are called runners, which elevate them about two feet.—Anburey, ‘Travels,’ i. 142 (id.).
1802. A lad, seated on the fore part of a sleigh load of goods, was suddenly pitched off before one of the runners.—Mass. Spy, March 24.
1853. Moonlit nights, when steel-shod runners glance over the crisp snow, and smothered voices make confusion beneath bear-skins and buffalo-robes.—G. H. Hill (‘Lewis Myrtle’), ‘Cap Sheaf,’ p. 94 (N.Y.).
1854.
| Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, | |
| Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, | |
| And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, | |
| While firmer ice the eager boy awaits. | |
J. R. Lowell, ‘An Indian-Summer Reverie.’ |
1851. [This accident] probably threw the teamster under the runner.—John S. Springer, ‘Forest Life,’ p. 106 (N.Y.).
1852. The runners gritted over the bare planks.—Yale Lit. Mag., xvii. 143 (Feb.).
1857. I left the Tremont House in a hackney carriage, the wheels whereof had turned into runners. This method of progression, rendered necessary by the deep snows, is considered a great amusement in the North.—G. H. Derby (‘John Phœnix’), ‘The Squibob Papers,’ p. 145 (1865).
