I just asked my dictionary and it sled (sorry, I had to) that sled is simply the US term for sledge. However, we Brits are so familar with US English that I'm sure that anyone would understand you. In fact, I never would have known that it is a US term unless you'd pointed it out. And you thought I just knew my chickens.

Obviously you havew the sledge on me, neilo.

Hey, here did that w come from? Oh, ait, I see.

Wait a sec here, I thought AE had three different words:

sled - relatively small and lightweight, for children to pull friends on or slide down hills on, or for the Iditarod dog race in Alaska (dogsled)
sleigh - drawn by horses, like a carriage but with runners, for carrying passengers ('Jingle Bells,' Santa Claus, etc.)
sledge - also horse-drawn but lower and heavier, like a wagon or barge but with runners, for hauling heavy loads such as timber (cut trees)

The dictionaries I checked seem to agree. So I definitely wouldn't say that 'sledge' is solely BE, just that it has a particular meaning in AE, namely, a heavy, low sled for hauling loads.

It would be nice, of course, if the LEO entries could be edited so that the distinctions are clear.

Don't forget the good old toboggan, eh!

Eh, I'm not sure I can quite picture a toboggan, eh. Is it the flat one with the curled-up end?

Besides, I thought dwellers in balmy BC didn't have that much snow and ice either. Weren't you the one who was just on my case not too long ago about generalizing about Canadian weather? After I had even said something nice about your punny nick, too, tsk, tsk.

So do y'all way up there in the frozen tundra say sled or sledge, or only toboggan, or only above 50°N, or what?

And how would one express these differences in German, or are they all just Schlitten?

yeah, not much tobogganing in balmy BC... in fact, it's been such a mild winter, I never even wore my touque ;-)

Toboggan is pretty common across Canada, I don't think it's a regional thing (of course, I can't really speak for 'la belle provence' here). A proper toboggan would have to be the flat type with the curld-up end; everything else would be a sled or sleigh (if you check e.g. Canadian Tire Online, you'll find a section "Sleds and Toboggans"). But then, again, most Canadians would go "tobogganing" no matter what they use.

As for the German equivalent, I'd go with "Schlitten" for all of them. See, just like the Inuit people have 15 different words for snow because it is such a central part of their lives, we have several words for "Schlitten" - bit like the many names that Germans use for their cars.

hm-us: the only sledge I grew up with was the hammer, and that in Upstate New York just south of the snowy Canadian border. We enough snow that a sledge would be a useful thing. But it's a big country and perhaps the word is in use elsewhere.