different between drygulcher vs drygulch

English

Etymology

dry +? gulch +? -er

Pronunciation

Noun

drygulcher (plural drygulchers)

1. (slang) In the Wild West, a hired assassin who shoots his targets from a concealed location.

English

Alternative forms

• dry gulch
• dry-gulch

Etymology

Because in the American West, outlaws often killed people as they passed through a dry gulch; or because cattle rustlers drove stolen animals off the edge of such a gulch. (ref. John Ayto 1998)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d?????lt?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?d?a?.??lt?/

Verb

drygulch (third-person singular simple present drygulches, present participle drygulching, simple past and past participle drygulched)

1. (US, slang) To murder; to attack, assault, especially in an ambush.
   • 1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin 2010, p. 77:

     ‘Then one of them got into the car and dry-gulched me.’

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 722-3:

     You've delivered yourselves into the hands of capitalists and Christers, and anybody wants to change any of that steps across ’at frontera, they're drygulched on the spot—though I'm sure you'd know how to avoid that, Dwayne.

Derived terms

• drygulcher

Translations