Indian trail
1
6.9
- noun
- US
:
sendero indígena
- This was part of an old Indian trail and had been used by General Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, in his successful effort to elude redcoats; the fancy British couldn't or wouldn't follow him into these infested woods.
- an old Indian trail
- follow the Indian trail
Examples
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Route 355 started out as a Seneca Indian trail and became a strategic travel route during Colonial times.
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We take the Indian trail to the Tree of the Dead.
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Follow the Indian trail to where the sun dies.
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The Indian trail up through the forest was as steep as an avalanche chute.
Fiction book (1991) -
We...Found an indian trail.
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The old courthouse on the square stands on a rise of land where two Indian trails crossed.
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It was June before he heard about a job clearing the old Indian trail through the mountains to Nome.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a path formed and used by Indigenous peoples' is directly derivable from combining 'Indian' (pertaining to indigenous American peoples) with 'trail' (a beaten path); the adjective+noun composition transparently signals a trail associated with those people. This straightforward possessive/attributive pattern is common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Indian trail comes from the simple image of a narrow trail worn into the land by Indian people who walked, hunted, and traded there. Because later settlers followed these same paths, the phrase now means 'a path through the wilderness originally formed and used by Indigenous peoples'.