6 ms·
Yes.
by esikich 23d ago
Yes.
- defrost 23d agoCould be your sphere of reading and / or age - it's common enough in (say) the British Ripping Yarns genre of boys own colonial adventures. So UK, Canadian, Australian boys who were ten years old in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s would have encountered it. Anything that featured older school British Empire toy soldiers would have likely used the word, along with other military terms. Rudyard Kipling is a typical kind of author who'd be read by ten year olds and who'd use that word and others of a similar pedigree.