homeward bounder

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A vessel making a return trip to its home port or home country.

   • Here are outward bounders, and homeward bounders, apparently just about to run over each other in every direction[.]
   • In this way a fine homeward bounder, called the Junior, bound to Aberdeen from Callao, laden with a valuable cargo, caught the shore about eight or nine miles to the westward of Boulogne.
   • "I should suppose," he went on, "that she's a homeward-bounder; from India, say, now?"
2. 2

   A person making a return trip to their home country.

   • [advert] WANTED, to Sell to Homeward-bounders, a splendid King PARROT and Cedar CAGE, £2 10s.
   • He now expressed his regret, and said he was a homeward-bounder, and was to be paid on April 23.
   • I had bought a seventh of the Billy go Lightly from a homeward-bounder, paying £200 for it, and had seen my money back twice over, for though the reef was a tolerably hard one to work, it went well and was over a foot wide.
3. 3

   A roughly executed stitch used when repairing articles of clothing on a vessel nearing…

   A roughly executed stitch used when repairing articles of clothing on a vessel nearing the end of a long voyage.

   • [D]o you for one moment believe that the ‘homeward bounders’ in Mrs. Faul's needlework was the head and front of Mr. Flannery's offending?
   • [S]he lifted a boot, drew up into the light an oilskin trouser-leg where it was patched — homeward bounders, every stitch of them — and said in a voice obdurate as flint, "Fifteen shillings."
   • Pete was in his dungarees with his ‘homeward bounder’ stitches over the many rents in great evidence, a coat, and, as usual, no shirt[.]
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      A goldmine which is highly productive, making the owners rich enough to abandon mining…

      A goldmine which is highly productive, making the owners rich enough to abandon mining and return to their home country.

      • A rich hole is now known as a "homeward bounder," — a name expressive of pleasure to the winner of the prize, but of sinister significance to those who remain behind.

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