Shooting; especially hunting.

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a. 1622.  

        Forc’d by some yelping cute to give the greyhounds view,
Which are at length let slip, when gunning out they go.
Drayton’s ‘Poly-Olbion,’ xxiii. (N.E.D.)    

2

1624.  There is lesse danger in’t then gunning, Sanchio.—Fletcher, ‘Rule a Wife,’ i. 2. (N.E.D.)

3

1767.  All persons coming to gun on said Island after Game.—‘New England Register’ (1860), xiv. 47. (N.E.D.)

4

1770.  Some young men, who had been a gunning, went to Beaman’s Tavern.—Mass. Gazette, June 11.

5

1770.  Mr. Smith was out a gunning; his Gun went off accidentally, while he was charging her, which immediately killed him.—Id., Aug. 23.

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1770.  H. H. Williams of Noddles-Island forbids “all persons from Gunning on said Island.”—Boston-Gazette, Sept. 3.

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1779.  Our men went out this day gunning.—‘New England Register,’ xvi. 29. (N.E.D.)

8

1809.  Mr. Joseph Bagley and Mr. Obed Rice went down the river, gunning.—Mass. Spy, Nov. 22.

9

1825.  Out a gunnin’ ruther late, mister, to-day—I seem to guess?—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ ii. 112.

10

1829.  Gunning. The firing of guns in and about our streets has become a serious evil.—Mass. Spy, Sept. 30.

11

1837.  Two men in Camden N.J. were gunning a few days since.—Balt. Comml. Transcript, Sept. 9, p. 2/1.

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1843.  Gunning!—alas! is that degrading appellation to be applied to hunting!—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ i. 122.

13

1848.  

        Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe,
One Sunday mornin’ ’greed to go
Agunnin’ soon’z the bells wuz done
And meetin’ finally begun,
So’st no one would n’t be about
Ther Sabbath-breakin’ to spy out.
J. R. Lowell, ‘The Two Gunners.’    

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1866.  Well, I used to be almost everlastingly a gunning.—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 67.

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