horse
/hɔːs
/- Equus caballus, family Equidae (the horse family), descended from the wild Przewalski’s horse. The horse family also includes the asses and zebras.
- The mowing machine for the barley and oats was pulled by two horses and carried two people - the blades would be flying when it was in use.
- Domestic donkeys interact well with other livestock animals such as horses, cows, goats, sheep, and llamas.
Synonyms
- The photo is cropped closely so that the reader is not aware that he's looking at a picture of a male horse rather than a mare.
- Wild horses can be tamed, but Finch said it takes someone who is knowledgeable and experienced.
- The horse family - Equiidae - was an especial success story during the Neogene.
- The cavalry regiments have always been splendidly dressed, with the light horse being the most dashing.
- He fought alongside the duke at the naval battles off Lowestoft in 1665 and at Sole Bay in 1672 and, though a catholic, was made colonel of a regiment of horse.
- The next level down was the commander of the fire unit - the horse artillery troop or foot artillery company - equivalent to modern batteries.
- R. Mikaelyan was first among the Soviet gymnasts who started with the long horse.
- A year later Olga won her first award at the national title meet - a gold medal in the horse vault.
- Instead of a bunch of layabouts smoking glue and cracking charlie's horse with LSD, we could have good, fit criminals with discipline and firearms skills.
- He remembers his first taste of marijuana, his first snort of horse.
- For firms horsing their own vehicles, the cost of the yard would be a joint cost and cannot be divided between horses and vehicles.
- High tobymen, or horsed robbers, had yielded the field to low tobymen, or footpads, and roadside thieving had lost its traditional panache.
- North and South learned early on that horsed formations could not charge ranks of infantry armed with the new rifled musket, and they relegated cavalry to scouting and raiding roles.
Phrases
don't change horses in midstream
frighten the horses
from the horse's mouth
horses for courses
you can lead (or take) a horse to water but you can't make him drink
Phrasal verbs
horse around (or about)
Derivatives
horse-like
- The centaur had her four cockatrices perched on the spine of her horse-like half, and her cat was at her side.
- That the fossil record documents a large number of stable horse-like species has no relevance to the question of whether the horse fossils we have provide strong evidence of common descent.
- A reptilian head was accompanied by a horse-like body.
Origin
Old English hors, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch ros and German Ross.
An ancient word that has relatives in most northern European languages. The root may also be the source of Latin currere ‘to run’ (see cursor). Horse racing has given numerous expressions to the language. The saying horses for courses is from the idea that each racehorse is suited to one particular racecourse and will do better on that than on any other. A. E. T. Watson's The Turf in 1891 was the first to record this observation, which he describes as ‘a familiar phrase on the turf’. The underlying idea of straight from the horse's mouth is that the best way to get racing tips is to ask a horse directly. One of the first examples comes from a 1913 edition of the Syracuse Herald: ‘Lionel hesitated, then went on quickly. “I got a tip yesterday, and if it wasn't straight from the horse's mouth it was jolly well the next thing to it.”’ People often say something like, ‘Oh, wild horses wouldn't…’, meaning that nothing could persuade them to do that particular thing, not realizing the horrific reference—it comes from the old custom of executing criminals by tying each of the four limbs to four horses and then urging the horses on, tearing the person into four pieces. To flog a dead horse is to waste energy on a lost cause or a situation that cannot be altered. Dead horse used to be workmen's slang for work that was charged for before it was done: to work or work for a dead horse was to do work that you had already been paid for.
An early form of the proverb you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink was ‘They can but bringe horse to the water brinke, But horse may choose whether that horse will drinke’ (1602). The horse chestnut was formerly said to be a remedy for chest diseases in horses, and its name is a translation of Latin Castanea equina. In horsefly (Late Middle English), horseradish (late 16th century), and similar terms horse implies ‘large of its kind’. See also dark, easel, equestrian, gift