The term toboggan was initially introduced in English by British officer George Head in 1829 in his narrative of exploring the North American wilderness, where he spelled it tobogin. Subsequent spellings included taboggan, tobaggan, tarboggin, toboggen, tarbogin, and various others; the modern form was standardized in the late 19th century, and the word gained significant popularity in the 1880s. Head likely borrowed the word from the French tabagane, which in turn originated from either the M’ikmaq word tepaqan or the Abenaki word dabogan, both denoting the same type of flat-bottomed sled (both derived from Proto-Algonquian). The verb to toboggan first appeared in 1846, and the expression toboggan cap dates back to 1929. The usage of toboggan reached its peak in 1936 and has since declined by approximately half in frequency.
