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Wild West
Also wild west, wild West.
1. The western part of the U.S. during its lawless frontier period.
1849C. Brontë Shirley III. xiii. 272 What suggested the wild West to your mind? 1851Mayne Reid Scalp Hunters i. (1852) 7 The Wild West. 1898H. James in Literature 30 Apr. 512/1 Has he [sc. Bret Harte] continued to distil and dilute the Wild West because the public would only take him as wild and Western? 1903Chesterton Robert Browning v. 111 A gambling hell in the Wild West. 1937Phillips & Niven Colour in Canad. Rockies ix. 61 On my first visit there were many marked qualities of the ‘wild west’ there. 1977Times 20 Sept. 12/1 The Rio Grande..has been oversold in the legends and songs of the old Wild West.
2. transf. and fig.
1889G. B. Shaw London Music in 1888–89 (1937) 170 Somewhere in the wild west of the Old Brompton Road. 1944F. Clune Red Heart 69 Australia's Wild West, as picturesque as Texas, was buzzing with rumours of raids, hold-ups. 1975J. O'Faolain Women in Wall 11 My setting is the Wild West of an age often called ‘Dark’.
3. a. attrib.
1922E. E. Cummings Let. 26 Feb. (1969) 82 Attacks by Bedoins, wild-west style, shooting at Dos with rifles. 1922E. M. Forster Life to Come (1972) 100 They passed through the village, on their way back past a cinema, which was giving a Wild West stunt. 1940‘G. Orwell’ in Horizon Mar. 193 The Wild West story..with its cattle-rustlers. 1965A. Nicol Truly Married Woman 5 She removed the Wild West novels and romance magazines. 1971Advocate-News (Barbados) 17 Sept. (Guyana Suppl.) p. iv/2 There it will link up at the ‘wild west’ border town of Lethem with a similar road the Brazilian army engineers are building to connect with Manaus and the Pan-American Highway.
b. Special Comb.: Wild West show, a circus or fairground entertainment depicting cowboys and Indians with exhibitions of riding, shooting, etc.; also fig.; similarly Wild West exhibition.
1885in B. A. Botkin Treas. Amer. Folklore (1944) i. 150 Buffalo Bill's ‘Wild West’ Prairie exhibition and Rocky Mountain show. 1895‘Mark Twain’ in N. Amer. Rev. July 8 A man who could hunt flies with a rifle and command a ducal salary in a Wild West show. 1914A. Bennett Price of Love vii. 133 Skating-rinks, Wild West exhibitions, Dutch auctions. 1937N. Marsh Vintage Murder xxiv. 268 ‘Shut up. This isn't a Wild West show.’ ‘You give me the lie!’ ‘Oh, for God's sake don't go native.’ 1976Billings (Montana) Gaz. 20 June 8-c/2 Later, the way it worked in the ‘wild west’ shows of the day, the U.S. cavalry came along, rescued the passengers and drove off the Indians. 1979J. Wainwright Duty Elsewhere vii. 29 ‘Y'mean—illegal methods?.. Something of a wild west show.’ ‘That's one way of putting it.’
Hence wild ˈwestern (also with initial capitals) a., characteristic of or resembling the Wild West; as n., a film about the Wild West; = western B. 4; Wild ˈWesterner.
1864M. B. Chesnut Diary 2 Dec. in C. W. Woodward M. Chesnut's Civil War (1981) 682 He had come to take Serena—alone. That is his wild western fashion. 1934Cinema Q. III. iv. 198 ‘Wild Western’ was, almost from the inception of the film, one of its most popular subjects. 1963I. Fleming On Her Majesty's Secret Service xvii. 192 A group of harlequins, Wild Westerners and pirates. 1967D. Francis Blood Sport viii. 95 Jackson preserved its own wild western flavour to the extent of a small authentic stage coach waiting in front of the drug store. 1981A. Lurie Lang. of Clothes iv. 112 At any national convention the Wild Westerners will be the easiest to identify. 1982W. Mankowitz Mazeppa vii. 118 The Menken enjoyed the Washoe wild western atmosphere. |