What does bobsleigh mean?
A bobsleigh is a specialized racing sled used in the winter sport of the same name. The vehicle is an aerodynamic, steel-hulled machine mounted on runners, designed to carry a crew of either two or four athletes down a steeply banked ice track at speeds that can approach ninety miles per hour or more. The crew pushes the sled to build momentum at the start, jumps aboard, and then steers through a twisting course of curves, with the person in front steering and the person at the rear operating the brake. The word also denotes the competitive sport itself, a fixture of the Winter Olympics since 1924. In British English and in official international competition, "bobsleigh" is the standard term, while Americans typically say "bobsled." The name recalls the sport's origins in late nineteenth-century Switzerland, when riders rocked — or bobbed — their sleds to pick up speed.
A mechanized racing sled, typically holding a crew of two or four, used to descend a banked ice track.
"The pilot guided the bobsleigh cleanly through the final curve."
In North American usage the equivalent form is "bobsled."
The winter sport in which teams race such sleds down an ice track against the clock.
"Germany has dominated Olympic bobsleigh for decades."
Standard regular plural; occasionally written "bobsleds" in American contexts.
"Three bobsleighs crossed the finish line within half a second of one another."
Bobsleigh got its name because early riders literally bobbed back and forth to gain speed on the straightaways — a technique long since abandoned but immortalized in the word itself.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bobsleigh
Bobsleigh arose in late nineteenth-century Switzerland, where wealthy British tourists began racing toboggans on the snowy roads around St. Moritz and other Alpine resorts. Early racers discovered they could gain speed by rocking their sleds back and forth — "bobbing" them — and the practice gave the new vehicle its name, combining "bob" with "sleigh," a Dutch-derived English word for a horse-drawn sleigh on runners. The sport quickly became formalized, with dedicated tracks and clubs appearing in Switzerland in the 1890s, and it entered the first Winter Olympics in 1924. The related terms bobsled and bobsledding are American variants built on the same elements.
Related word forms
How bobsleigh is actually used
"Bobsleigh" is the standard term in British English and international sporting bodies (the IBSF); American English strongly prefers "bobsled." Both are fully accepted; neither is considered informal.
Easily confused with bobsleigh
Luge is a different sliding sport where athletes race feet-first on their backs on a small one- or two-person sled, whereas bobsleigh involves crews riding inside an enclosed aerodynamic sled.