run

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

n.


1) Tract of land over which sheep orcattle may graze. It is curious that what in England is calleda sheep-walk, in Australia is a sheep-run. In the WesternUnited States it is a sheep-ranch. Originally the squatter, orsheep-farmer, did not own the land. It was unfenced, and hesimply had the right of grazing or «running» his sheep orcattle on it. Subsequently, in many cases, he purchased thefreehold, and the word is now applied to a large stationproperty, fenced or unfenced. (See quotation, 1883.)

1826. Goldie, in Bischoff's `Van Diemen's Land' (1832),p. 157:

«It is generally speaking a good sheep-run.»

1828. Report of Van Diemen's band Company, in Bischoff's`Van Diemen's Land' (1832), p. 117:

«A narrow slip of good sheep-run down the west coast.»

1844. `Port Phillip Patriot,' July 8, p. 4, col. 3:

«The thousand runs stated as the number in Port Phillip underthe new regulations will cost L12,800,000.»

1846. C. P. Hodgson, `Reminiscences of Australia,' p. 367:

«`Runs,' land claimed by the squatter as sheep-walks, open, asnature left them, without any improvement from the squatter.»

1862. H. C. Kendall, `Poems,' p. 78:

«The runs of the Narran wide-dotted with sheep,

And loud with the lowing of cattle.»

1864. W. Westgarth, `Colony of Victoria,' p. 273:

«Here then is a squatting domain of the old unhedged stamp.The station or the `run,' as these squatting areas are called,borders upon the Darling, along which river it possesses afrontage of thirty-five lineal miles, with a back area of 800square miles.»

1868. J. Bonwick, `John Batman, Founder of Victoria,' p. 34:

«The desire of some to turn Van Diemen's Land into a largesquatter's run, by the passing of the Impounding Act, was theimmediate cause, he told us, of his taking up the project of apoor man's country elsewhere.»

1870. `/Delta/,' `Studies in Rhyme,' p. 26:

«Of squatters' runs we've oft been told,

The People's Lands impairing.»

1883. G. W. Rusden, `History of Australia,' vol. i. p. 73[Note]:

«A run is the general term for the tract of country on which

Australians keep their stock, or allow them to `run.'»

2) The bower of the Bowerbird (q.v.).

1840. `Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' p. 94:

«They are used by the birds as a playing-house, or `run,'as it is termed, and are used by the males to attractthe females.»

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

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