IT’S ETYMOLOGY MONDAY—And this week’s word is:

toboggan

For anyone who has spent time in the snow (or giant sand dunes for that matter), toboggans spark delightful memories of fun and frivolity. This much-loved object originates from the First Nations peoples of North Eastern Canada. In Algonquin, it is called an odabaggan, and in Cree, it’s ubagaan, inspiring the word tabagane adopted by the French in Quebec in the 1800s.

Toboggans were originally used to transport goods and people, not for play (in fact, a similar object used for recreation was called a Tom Pung). Traditionally, they had a flat base and a curved front and were made from materials such as wood, bark, deer or buffalo hide, or whalebone. Interestingly, the Cree version of the word, ubagaan, is often used today in reference to a pick-up truck—a nod to the word’s origins as a cargo carrier.