claim-jumping

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English

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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claim-jumping (uncountable)

  1. (historical, Australia, Western US) The act of one who jumps a claim.
    • 1892, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor:
      When he told us of a man in a pew, of the change in the bride’s manner, of so transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her confidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to claim-jumping—which in miners’ parlance means taking possession of that which another person has a prior claim to—the whole situation became absolutely clear. She had gone off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a previous husband—the chances being in favour of the latter.