Horse

Definitions

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  Ye Olde Running Horse Inn, Leatherhead
• WordNet 3.6
  • v horse provide with a horse or horses
  • n horse solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped domesticated since prehistoric times
  • n horse a padded gymnastic apparatus on legs
  • n horse a chessman shaped to resemble the head of a horse; can move two squares horizontally and one vertically (or vice versa)
  • n horse a framework for holding wood that is being sawed
  • n horse troops trained to fight on horseback "500 horse led the attack"
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Additional illustrations & photos:

Rip-Sawing on a Horse

THE HORSE

Passing of the horse

WHERE A HORSE WAS SWALLOWED UP

Riders on horses

Rding a wooden horse

Horse and Man

A PROFITABLE HORSE TRADE

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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

• Interesting fact:Horses can sleep while standing upright.
• • Horse heroin.
  • Horse horsepower.
  • Horse (Naut) A breastband for a leadsman.
  • Horse A frame of timber, shaped like a horse, on which soldiers were made to ride for punishment.
  • Horse A frame with legs, used to support something; as, a clotheshorse, a sawhorse, etc.
  • Horse (Zoöl) A hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus; especially, the domestic horse (Equus caballus), which was domesticated in Egypt and Asia at a very early period. It has six broad molars, on each side of each jaw, with six incisors, and two canine teeth, both above and below. The mares usually have the canine teeth rudimentary or wanting. The horse differs from the true asses, in having a long, flowing mane, and the tail bushy to the base. Unlike the asses it has callosities, or chestnuts, on all its legs. The horse excels in strength, speed, docility, courage, and nobleness of character, and is used for drawing, carrying, bearing a rider, and like purposes.
  • Horse (Naut) A jackstay.
  • Horse (Mining) A mass of earthy matter, or rock of the same character as the wall rock, occurring in the course of a vein, as of coal or ore; hence, to take horsesaid of a vein -- is to divide into branches for a distance.
  • Horse (Student Slang) A translation or other illegitimate aid in study or examination; -- called also trotpony Dobbin.
  • Horse (Naut) An iron bar for a sheet traveler to slide upon.
  • Horse Anything, actual or figurative, on which one rides as on a horse; a hobby.
  • Horse (Student Slang) Horseplay; tomfoolery.
  • Horse Mounted soldiery; cavalry; -- used without the plural termination; as, a regiment of horse ; -- distinguished from foot."The armies were appointed, consisting of twenty-five thousand horse and foot."
  • Horse (Naut) See Footrope a.
  • Horse The male of the genus Equus, in distinction from the female or male; usually, a castrated male.
  • v. i Horse To get on horseback.
  • Horse To mate with (a mare); -- said of the male.
  • Horse To place on the back of another, or on a wooden horse, etc., to be flogged; to subject to such punishment.
  • Horse To provide with a horse, or with horses; to mount on, or as on, a horse."Being better horsed , outrode me."
  • Horse To sit astride of; to bestride.
  • Horse To take or carry on the back; as, the keeper, horsing a deer.
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

• Interesting fact:In Wyoming it is illegal to tattoo a horse with the intent of making it unrecognizable to its owner.
• • n horse A solidungulate perissodactyl mammal of the family Equidœ and genus Equus; E. caballus. It has a flowing mane and tail, comparatively small erect ears, comparatively large rounded hoofs, shapely head, arched neck, a callosity on the inner side of the hind leg below the hock, in addition to one on the fore leg above the so-called “knee,” and a peculiar voice called a “neigh.” These are the principal distinctive characters of the existing horses, of whatever variety, in comparison with the asses and zebras, which are commonly placed in the same genus (Equus). The horse has no distinctive coloration, but is never conspicuously striped in any regular pattern, and seldom shows even the dorsal and shoulder stripe characteristic of the ass, though there is often an indication of this marking in horses which have reverted to a feral state and tend to assume a dun color. The horse is now known only as a domesticated and artificially bred animal, though in both North and South America, in Australia, and in some parts of Asia the descendants of domesticated ancestors run wild in troops. The native country of the horse and the period of its subjection to man are unknown. Animals congeneric with the present horse, if not conspecific, have left their remains with those of the mammoth and other extinct animals in the bone-caves of both the old and new worlds, but the genus Equus appears not to have been fully established before the close of the Pliocene. The evolution of the modern forms has been traced back through the whole Tertiary period, by the discovery of such genera as Hipparion and Pliohippus of the Pliocene, Anchitherium, Miohippus, and Mesohippus of the Miocene, and Orohippus and Eohippus of the Eocene. In the course of this evolutionary series is observed a very gradual and unbroken geologic pedigree, going back to a small animal, not larger than a fox, with several separate toes on each foot. The size has steadily increased, and other progressive modifications, especially of the limbs, have resulted in the existing horse in all its numberless artificial breeds, races, and strains, combining in various degrees the qualities of size, strength, speed, and bottom. Two breeds—namely, the large, powerful, black breed of Flanders, and the Arabian — have contributed more than all others to develop the present varieties. The former laid the foundation of size, strength, and vigor for draft-horses and for those formerly used in war; while, when mailed armor was laid aside, and the horse began to be used for the chase, the latter conferred the speed and endurance which distinguish the hunter. The ladies’ palfrey is largely derived from the Spanish genet, a small, beautiful, fleet variety of the Moorish barb. The race-horse has less of Flemish and more of Arabian blood. Other leading varieties are the Suffolk Punch and Clydesdale, both chiefly of Flemish blood, and best for draft and agriculture; and several varieties of ponies, as Galloway, Shetland, etc. Carriage, riding, and other horses combine the above breeds in varying degrees, as speed, endurance, strength, or size, etc., may be required. Horses are said to have “blood” or “breeding” in proportion as they have a greater or less strain of Arab blood. The wild horse of Tatary is called a tarpan, that of northern Africa a koomrah, and that of America a mustang, the last being descended from imported Spanish parents. The male of the horse is a stallion; when gelded, a gelding; the female is a mare; the young, a foal—if a male, a colt, if a female, a filly. The colt and filly become “of age” when the “corner-nippers” (outer incisors) attain functional development. The age of the horse may be determined by the marks on the front teeth, which change with the wearing down of the crowns by use. When the mark disappears. as it generally does in the eighth or ninth year, the horse is “aged.” The period of gestation is eleven months, and foals are generally dropped in the spring. Horses vary greatly in size, some standing more than twice as high as others. Very small horses are called ponies, as those bred in Shetland.
  • n horse plural In zoology, the horse family, or Equidæ; the species of the genus Equus and related genera. These include all the existing asses of the restricted genus Asinus, and the quagga, dauw, and zebra, of the restricted genus Hippotigris, together with all the extinct forms of the Tertiary period which, however different from the modern horse, are connected closely by intermediate links. See Equidœ.
  • n horse The male of the horse kind, in distinction from the female or mare; a stallion or gelding.
  • n horse A body of troops serving on horseback: cavalry: in this sense a collective noun, used also as a plural: as, a regiment of horse.
  • n horse A frame, block, board, or the like, on which something is mounted or supported, or the use of which is in any way analogous to that of a horse. Compare etymology of easel.
  • n horse Specifically— A vaulting-block in a gymnasium.
  • n horse A wooden frame on which soldiers are made to ride as a punishment: sometimes called a timber mare.
  • n horse A saw-horse.
  • n horse A clothes-horse.
  • n horse A currier’ board, used in dressing hides.
  • n horse In printing, a sloping board, with its support, placed on the bank close to the tympan of a hand-press, on which is laid the paper to be printed.
  • n horse A support for the cables of a suspension-bridge.
  • n horse A board on which the workman sits in grinding the bevels and edges of tools in their manufacture. Also horsing.
  • n horse In mining, a mass of rock inclosed within a lode or vein, usually of the same material as the “country,” or rock adjacent to the lode on each side.
  • n horse In metallurgy, same as bear, 7.
  • n horse An implement or a device for some service suggesting or supposed to suggest that of a horse. Specifically— A clamp for holding screws for filing.
  • n horse Nautical: A foot-rope.
  • n horse A jack-stay, on the forward or after side of a mast, on which a sail or yard is hoisted.
  • n horse A traveler for the sheet-block of a fore-and-aft sail, consisting of a horizontal bar of wood or iron.
  • n horse The iron bar between the posts of a fife-rail to which the leading-blocks are fastened.
  • n horse A translation or similar forbidden aid used by a pupil in the preparation of his lessons; a “pony”; a “trot”; a “crib”: so called as helping the pupil to get on faster.
  • n horse Among British workmen, work charged for before it is executed.
  • n horse A term of opprobrium. Compare ass, similarly used.
  • n horse [Horse, as the first element of a compound. indicates a large or coarse thing of its kind: as, horse-chestnut, horse-crab, horse-mackerel, horse-play, etc.]
  • n horse Hence— Any competitor for or recipient of a prize, honors, or office concerning whom nothing certain is known, or whose identity is at first concealed, as for reasons of strategy; one who is unexpectedly brought forward as a candidate, or for nomination in a convention: much used in American politics.
  • n horse The cavalry and infantry — that is, the whole army: as, they were routed, horse, foot, and dragoons.
  • n horse As used adverbially, indiscriminately; without favor.
  • n horse Take horse; mount: used absolutely, as a signal or command.
  • n horse To be covered, as a mare.
  • n horse In mining, to divide into branches for a distance: said of a vein.
  • horse To provide with a horse; supply horses for, as a body of cavalry, etc.
  • horse To sit astride; bestride.
  • horse To cover: said of the male.
  • horse To mount or place on or as on the back of a horse; set on horseback; hence, to take on one's own back.
  • horse To mount on another's back preparatory to flogging.
  • horse Nautical, to “ride” hard; drive or urge at work unfairly or tyrannically: as, to horse a ship's crew.
  • horse To make out or learn by means of a translation or other extrinsic aid: as, to horse a lesson in Virgil.
  • horse To get on horseback; mount or ride on a horse.
  • horse To charge for work before it is executed.
  • horse In calking, to embed firmly in the seams of a ship, as oakum, with a horsing-iron and a mallet: often with up.
  • horse An obsolete form of hoarse.
  • n horse The researches of Ewart, Osborn, and others show the probability that the modern horse, like the dog, has been derived from several sources. Prjevalsky's horse is considered to be one of these, while two other forms are recognized—the Celtic pony and the Norse horse.
  • n horse One of the inclined timbers in a staircase which support the steps.
  • n horse In mining: A lenticular bod of shale or old channel fillings which cuts out coal-seams.
  • n horse In chess, same as knight.
  • n horse In astronomy, the constellation of Pegasus (see flying horse); also, the equine part of Sagittarius (represented as a centaur).
  • n horse A Danish silver coin of the value of 1 s. 2 d.
  • horse To hang (as skins) over a wooden horse or stand.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary

• Interesting fact:It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.
• • n Horse hors a well-known quadruped:
  • v.t Horse to mount on a horse: to provide with a horse: to sit astride: to carry on the back: to urge at work tyrannically: to construe by means of a crib
  • v.i Horse to get on horseback: to charge for work before it is done
  • adj Horse of reddish-bronze colour
  • adj Horse shaped like a horse-shoe
  • v.t Horse to strike with a horse-whip: to lash
  • n Horse hors (collectively) cavalry: that by which something is supported, as 'clothes-horse,' &c.: a wooden frame on which soldiers were formerly made to ride as a punishment—also Timber-mare: a boy's crib, a translation