The iron horse was long a nickname for a railroad locomotive. As it rolled across the country scattering sparks, it scared not only horses but many people.
An old war horse is or was (more often in Britain) a veteran of various battles who enjoyed reminiscing about them.
A willing horse is someone who so enjoys work that they’re willing to do others’ work as well.
From the long-lasting strength and reliability of a horse came the term workhorse, to describe a person or machine that performs steadily and efficiently over a long period.
The horse latitudes have been known as such since the 1700s. Situated between the westerlies and the trade winds, these belts of sea and calm air are found in both northern and southern hemispheres.
Horse beans are field beans with bigger than usual seeds, used as fodder.
A horsetail is a flowerless plant that produces spores featuring whorls of narrow leaves that may have reminded someone long ago of whirling horse tails.
Horse chestnuts are deciduous trees with white, pink, or red flowers and nuts called conkers inside a spiny case. Castanea equina is Latin for horse chestnut, so named because its fruit was reportedly an Eastern remedy for chest diseases in horses.
Horse mushrooms are edible and large, with creamy white caps.
A horse laugh, typically expressing incredulity or derision, is loud and coarse, which doesn’t sound fair or similar to a horse’s neigh or whinny.
And horse sense is another name for common sense, which is not all that common. (Mr. Ed would say it’s even less common among humans.)
To Flog a Dead Horse
This expression meaning to do something pointless has a nautical origin, specifically in the horse latitudes, located within 30 degrees either side of the equator. Because of the area’s weak winds (due to subsiding dry air and high pressure), tall sailing ships requiring strong winds inevitably slowed or even stalled.
The passage could take weeks, even months, by which time most sailors had worked off what they called the “dead horse,” advance wages gotten when they signed aboard. However, because seamen were paid by the day, they had no incentive to expend extra effort sailing through the horse latitudes, and so the slowed period was nicknamed flogging the dead horse.
Horse Animals
Horses are such a primary animal in human civilization that various creatures resembling them or parts of them, or involved with horses, bear equine names. To wit, the horseshoe bat (insectivorous, not a blood-sucker) has a horseshoe-shaped ridge on its nose, while the horseshoe crab has a rounded horseshoe-shaped shell and long tail spine.
Horse mackerel are so named because of an old myth that smaller fish could ride on the mackerel’s back over great distances along the eastern Atlantic. “Flying fish” gave rise to many incredible stories.
The sea horse has a head and neck that startlingly suggest the grace and beauty of a horse. The male of this unique species is impregnated by the female, carries the offspring, then delivers them. So what’s the difference between female and male sea horses? Simple: she provides eggs, he provides sperm.
A horsefly is a larger fly that plagues horses via the female of the species, which sucks blood and leaves painful bites.
Another menace is the horseleech, large and predatory (both genders). Dwelling on land and in fresh water, it feeds off small invertebrates but also carrion, hence the name: it’s often seen attached to equine corpses.
(In pre-auto Istanbul, horses—used primarily as draft animals—were usually overworked until they literally dropped in their tracks, disposed of by the city’s packs of wild dogs. After cars came in and the dogs, considered unclean in Islam, had served their purpose, the remaining canines were rounded up, shipped to one of the nearby Princes (sic) Islands, and there disposed of via starvation-induced cannibalism.)
A Bit. . . of Sleep
Back in 470 BCE the Greek playwright Aeschylus wrote, “You take the bit in your teeth like a new-harnessed colt.” The expression evinces enthusiastic determination to perform a task and derives from the metal bar or bit placed in a horse’s mouth and attached to the bridle and reins that allows a rider to steer and control the animal. The phrasing is to get or take or have the bit between one’s teeth or—more often in North America—to get the bit in one’s teeth.
Horses usually sleep standing up, relaxed and without strain, via interlocking bones and ligaments in their legs. Horses can spend a month continuously standing. Being heavy animals with relatively delicate legs, they’re not prone to lie down and get up, then down, then up, very often. A major reason to lie down is to scratch an itch against the ground or grass or leaves, etc. In the wild, when horses do lie down to sleep, one horse always remains erect as a sentry.
Seeing a Man About a Horse
Whereas seeing a man about a dog rarely involved a dog, this equine variation on the Victorian expression was typically literal. Someone saying it was usually headed for the races or going to get a tip about a specific horse.
Sometimes seeing a man about a dog did involve canines, especially in late 19th-century America, where coursing meets employing two greyhounds to chase a rabbit to its death were popular. County fairs also made hefty profits with greyhound races. Because the crowds drawn to any sort of animal race inevitably included shady characters, seeing a man about a horse or a dog eventually also implied engaging in any nefarious or illegal activity.
Horse Sayings
When there were horses and carriages, a man in a hurry to get home or wherever else he was going (to see a man about a dog?) might order his coachman, “Don’t spare the horses.” For some time after automobiles came on the scene, some people facetiously but meaningfully said the same thing to the chauffeur. The expression is now rare even in England.
Hold your horses! This phrase demanding patience goes back a few centuries in England but became widely known in the United States and Australia by the 1940s.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride—indicates an unfulfillable wish.
To drive a coach and horses through a law/regulation/rule—a British expression meaning to find a very large loophole in it.
To back the wrong horse is less to bet on the wrong horse than to rely on the wrong person, thing, or cause.
A two-horse race is one between only two participants or two with any chance of winning, and now often applies to elections.
To get or climb on one’s high horse is to assume a superior or moral tone or attitude.
To frighten the horses is to shock public opinion. British stage actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1865–1940) famously declared, “It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom so long as you don’t frighten the horses.” In other words, to keep it behind closed doors; the phrase projects human indignation and hypocrisy onto horses!
Someone who rides roughshod over another person is cruel and may inflict the psychological pain that a roughshod horse trampling or kicking somebody would inflict physically, for the horseshoes of roughshod horses bear nails intentionally left protruding to allow extra grip in wet or icy weather.
Horsemen
Chivalry in its archaic sense meant knights, noblemen, and horsemen collectively, all predicated on horses, the word itself evolving from Latin caballus, horse. Chivalry is now courteous behavior—which was part of the knight’s code—particularly of a man toward a woman.
Cavalier meant a cavalryman or a courteous gentleman. Today it’s an improperly unconcerned attitude. It and cavalry also evolved from the Latin horse, as did words in the Latin languages that usually mean both horseman and gentleman. For instance, French chevalier, knight, which is also a surname (entertainer Maurice Chevalier). Long ago, a man who could afford to buy and keep a horse was often a knight and automatically a gentleman.
On men’s restrooms in Latin America one often sees Caballeros, gentlemen as well as horsemen; caballero is also used to politely address any given man.
Mangiacavallo is an Italian surname translating
to eat horse. The opera Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni means rustic chivalry.
In German, knight or horseman doesn’t come from horse. Rather, Ritter (also a surname, as in actor John Ritter, whose father Tex was a cowboy star) is related to Reiter, rider.
In the United States, the word esquire is appended to an attorney’s name. In Britain, it can be attached to any man’s name as a courtesy; in days of old, an esquire was a young nobleman training for knighthood by attending a knight.
An equerry—from equus, also horse—was historically an officer in charge of royal or noble stables, is now an officer of Britain’s royal household who looks after not horses but royals. (English actor Anthony Steel once said, “The key difference between us and royals is their ancestors killed far more people than ours ever did.”)
Mounted. . .
The Horse Guards are British mounted squadrons provided from the Household Cavalry for ceremonial—and now touristic—purposes. A dragoon is a member of one of various British cavalry regiments (the verb means to coerce someone into doing something). Historically, a dragoon was a cavalryman armed with a carbine, which weapon was compared to a fire-emitting dragon, the origin of dragoon.
Tantivy is a fast ride or gallop, also an exclamation used as a hunting cry (and the name of a UK book publisher). A more famous hunting cry is “tally-ho,” yelled to the hounds by a huntsman upon sighting a fox. It’s of unknown origin, and not that different from the Lone Ranger’s “Hi-yo, Silver,” to his trusty steed from 1933 onwards. (Steed is from Olde English steda, meaning stallion and related to stud.)
A horsewhip is a long whip used to drive and control a horse. Numerous old British films and TV programs feature a scene where a chap angrily informs a usually younger one—who’s perhaps been seeing his daughter on the sly—“You should be horsewhipped!” The implication is a stronger-than-usual punishment.
By contrast, a riding crop is a short flexible whip, used to devastating effect on Marlon Brando by Elizabeth Taylor in the movie Reflections in a Golden Eye after she finds out he’s injured her pet stallion.
Horsesh*t
Many linguists agree there are two reasons “horsesh*t” is considered less rude than “bullsh*t.” First, it’s much less common and thus somewhat startling to the ear. Second, a horse is a “finer” animal than a bull, which is wilder and has cruder connotations (and is a male animal; “horse” is gender-neutral). In general, Germanic—including English—words, typically shorter and more blunt, are deemed less proper than their Latin equivalents, for example “sh*t” versus “feces.” (Or “wart” vs. the classier-sounding “verruca.”)
Dancer Cyd Charisse (The Band Wagon, Singin’ in the Rain, Brigadoon, etc.) often urged her Hollywood contemporaries to use the exclamation “horse waste!”
A seldom-used British expression is “rare as rocking-horse manure” (or sh*t), meaning so rare as to be non-existent. A 1986 ad for Australia’s Qantas airlines apprised potential passengers, “You’ll agree a better deal is about as likely as rocking-horse manure.”
Horsefeathers
This fanciful term, sometimes two words, signifies sheer nonsense and incredulity. According to the Historical Dictionary of American Slang it’s a euphemism for horsesh*t. It was coined by cartoonist Billy de Beck (1890–1942), creator of Barney Google, and was made more popular by the 1932 Marx Brothers movie of the same name. (Four years earlier there was a cartoon titled “Horsefeathers.”) Groucho Marx once commented, “If horses had enough feathers, they could fly, and what a mess we’d all be in.”
The most famous feathered flying horse is the white beauty Pegasus from Greek mythology. He was born from the blood of Medusa after Perseus decapitated the snake-haired Gorgon (one of three sisters). Pegasus then flew Perseus to the rescue of fair Andromeda, as seen in two versions of the movie Clash of the Titans.
Winged mammals were art favorites in the ancient Middle East, including the monumental winged-bull carvings of Mesopotamia, on view at museums in London, Paris, New York, etc. They represented a cross between earthly power and sky travel.
Hungry Horse. . .
Why “hungry as a horse”? Horses and cows (and bulls, oh, my!) are the largest farm animals, but according to philologist Mario Pei the horse, unlike the cow, is regarded as halfway to a pet. “It accompanies a man on a long ride, reacts more individually to humans . . . doesn’t give the impression of an eating machine like the cud-chewing cow, and exhibits greater intelligence.”
Horses loom large in human thought and comparisons. When one thinks of a voracious appetite, one thinks “hungry as a horse,” unless one is out camping, in which case it’s “hungry as a bear.” As for the unfortunate “I could eat a horse,” it proves that the horse resides closer to the human imagination than the cow, even when the cow would be more appropriate.
In dire situations, starving humans have resorted to eating a horse, but only as a last resort. In France, however, horsemeat was long an accepted comestible.
To eat like a horse is to be ravenous (which doesn’t derive from raven the bird), as does to eat like a pig, but minus porcine bad manners.
Full of beans and feeling one’s oats both connote frisky, happy, and well-fed. Both phrases originally pertained to horses. The Romans used horse beans as fodder, thus an energetic horse—and later a person—was full of beans. Likewise with oats, although to get one’s oats is British slang for having sex, and to sow one’s wild oats implies wild or promiscuous behavior while young.
Frisky horses are the source of expressions like horseplay and horsing around.
“Horse” is one of several nicknames for heroin, which is said to kick equines into overdrive.
A Stalking Horse
This phrase about exploitive deception dates back to the early 16th century, when a horse was specially trained so a huntsman could walk behind it and sneak close up to his target without it being forewarned. A stalking horse could also be an equine-shaped screen behind which a hunter hid while stalking prey. In time it came to mean any front—usually animal or human—for hiding one’s real intentions. Most specifically, per the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, it’s “a candidate for the leadership of a political party who stands only in order to provoke the election and thus allow a stronger candidate to come forward”—with reference to British politics. Interestingly, stalking horses, like cat’s paws, seldom benefit from their own actions.
Hack. . .
Hack is short for Hackney in East London, where horses were pastured. A hack may be an ordinary horse for riding, as opposed to racing, or a poor-quality or tired-out horse. Or a ride on a horse. Not to mention a taxi or a third-rate writer. (Another hack, a variant of hatch, is the board on which a hawk’s meat is served.)
A hackney is either a harnessed light horse with a high-stepping trot or a rented-out horse-drawn vehicle. The obsolete verb to hackney meant to employ a horse for general purposes; it birthed the adjective hackneyed, something overused and no longer original.
A hacking jacket is a riding jacket with slits at the back or side.
Hackles are the erectile hairs on an animal’s back which rise when it’s frightened or angry. To make a person’s hackles rise is to offend or anger them. Or excite them, as in the phrase’s first usage, in 1883 by writer Edward Pennell: “I almost saw the hackles of a good old squire rise as he waved his hat and cheered.”
A hackle is a long, slim feather on a cock or other bird’s neck or saddle. When a rooster’s hackle rises, he may be preparing for a fight.
A hackle is also a feather twisted around a fishing fly so its filaments splay out. Or the feathers in a military headdress.
A hackamore is a bridle that places pressure on a horse’s nose.
And Hackensack’s in New Jersey. ’Nuff said.
Hoofers
The hoof of an ungulate is the horny part of its foot, from Latin ungula, hoof. Most often, hoof refers to a horse’s foot, though the phrase on the hoof is a euphemism for un
slaughtered livestock. A hoofer is a professional dancer, specifically a tap dancer and more specifically one who “dances close to the floor” with little or no arm or body movement. Such dancers can produce a rolling sound resembling a horse’s gallop with particular steps and heel drops.
The primary nicknames for Broadway dancers are gypsies and hoofers, the former because they move from show to show, theatre to theatre. Multiple Tony-winner Gwen Verdon explained, “We’re hoofers because we so depend on our legs and feet. We’re valued for that. We’re athletes, as horses are, and all too soon we’re put out to pasture. . . . Also, it’s our own nickname, from way back. We’re the ones comparing ourselves to workhorses.”
Choreographer Jack Cole said, “Since I was a kid, I heard about hoofers. I didn’t know what a hoofer was, but it sounded energetic and like someone who could go places.” To hoof it also means to walk, rather than ride or drive.
Speaking of hooves and shoes, it was the Romans who came up with horseshoes. Why? The Romans built paved roads, and horses not running free and wild require pedi-protection against hard surfaces.
A Horse of Another Color
In Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night (published in 1623), Maria says of her double-entendre scheme against Malvolio, “My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that color.” It took time for the amended expression to assume its modern meaning of inaccurate comparisons, e.g., something completely different, akin to comparing apples and oranges. It may also denote one item that doesn’t fit in a group, for instance Olmecs, Mayans, Aztecs, and Phoenicians (the latter group not from the Americas . . . as in some multiple-choice exam questions).
The most famous and vivid example of a horse of another color is the one that literally changes colors as Dorothy Gale and her three pals ride a carriage into the Emerald City in the iconic film The Wizard of Oz.
In England, some have tried to pin the origin of this expression onto the White Horse of Berkshire, an archaeological oddity comprising a 374-foot-long outline of a horse formed by trenches in a chalk hillside. Local citizens periodically clear the trenches’ weeds, thereby making it “a horse of a different color.”
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