Search for: Horses
7021 Etymology dictionary, p. distance (n.).5
… 19c. horse-racing heats, where distance meant "the space behind the winning horse in a race that other competing horses must be inside to avoid being disqualified …
7022 Etymology dictionary, p. distance (v.).2
… a (horse) race" is from 1670s (see the noun). The meaning "to keep at a distance" is by 1786, marked as "? Obs." in OED, but that was before 2020. Related: Distanced; distancing …
7023 Etymology dictionary, p. dobbin (n.).2
… work-horse or farm horse, 1596 (in "Merchant of Venice"), probably from diminutive form of Dob (early 13c.), the common Middle English familiar form of the masc. proper …
7024 Etymology dictionary, p. dog's meat (n.).2
"horse flesh, offal, scraps, etc., used as food for dogs," 1590s.
7025 Etymology dictionary, p. donkey (n.).2
… (dun) horse (mid-14c.), and see dun (adj.). The form perhaps was influenced by monkey .
7026 Etymology dictionary, p. dope (n.).4
Sense of "inside information" (1901) may come from knowing before the race which horse had been drugged to influence performance (to dope (v.) in this sense is attested by 1900). Dope-fiend is attested from 1896, "a victim of the opium habit."
7027 Etymology dictionary, p. dossier (n.).2
… a horse's harness)."
7028 Etymology dictionary, p. double-team (v.).2
… of horses" (used in plowing, pulling, etc.), by 1830, and this might be the origin of the verb.
7029 Etymology dictionary, p. down (adv.).3
… , from horse-racing.
7030 Etymology dictionary, p. drag (n.).5
… a horse would drag it. By 1851 this was transferred to "street," as in the phrase main drag (which some propose as the source of the racing sense).
7031 Etymology dictionary, p. dray (n.).2
… a horse;" Middle Low German drage, Middle High German trage "a litter"); see drag (v.). Modern sense of "low, strong cart with stout wheels and without sides, used for carrying …
7032 Etymology dictionary, p. draw (v.).3
… a horse to the place of execution) is from c. 1300.
7033 Etymology dictionary, p. dressage (n.).2
… " a horse or other animal (c. 1400), but it died out.
7034 Etymology dictionary, p. dromedary (n.).3
… race-horse does with a cart-horse; it is not a different animal zoologically speaking" [Century Dictionary]. An early variant in English was drumbledairy (1560s …
7035 Etymology dictionary, p. drunk (adj.).3
… of horse-drawn vehicles; by 1894 of railroad engineers; drunken driver is older (by 1770). Drunk-tank "jail cell for drunkards" attested by 1912, American English …
7036 Etymology dictionary, p. dun (adj.).2
… dun horse" from late 14c. The "horse" meaning is that the figurative expression dun is in the mire "things are at a standstill or deadlocked," which occurs in both …
7037 Etymology dictionary, p. *ekwo-.2
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "horse." Perhaps related to *ōku- "swift."
7038 Etymology dictionary, p. *ekwo-.4
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit açva-, Avestan aspa-, Greek hippos, Latin equus, Old Irish ech, Old Church Slavonic ehu-, Old English eoh, Gothic aihwa- all meaning "horse."
7039 Etymology dictionary, p. Eohippus (n.).2
oldest known genus of the horse family, about the size of a fox and first known from fossil remains found in New Mexico, 1879, Modern Latin, from eo- "earliest" + Greek hippos "horse" (from PIE root *ekwo- "horse").
7040 Etymology dictionary, p. equerry (n.).2
… of horses, 1590s, short for groom of the equirrie, from esquiry "stables" (1550s), from French escuerie (Modern French écurie ), perhaps from Medieval Latin scuria …