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clotheshorse

[klohz-hawrs, klohth z-]
noun
  1. Informal. a person whose chief interest and pleasure is dressing fashionably.
  2. a frame on which to hang wet laundry for drying.
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Origin of clotheshorse

First recorded in 1765–75; clothes + horse
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for clothes-horse

Historical Examples

  • She washed and rinsed the garments, and, opening a clothes-horse, spread them out to dry.

    Meadow Grass

    Alice Brown

  • I was so proud I had cold chills, and I walked like a clothes-horse on castors.

    The Confessions of a Daddy

    Ellis Parker Butler

  • No, no, said Tootles hastily; Flick is only a clothes-horse for the time being.

    The Woman Gives

    Owen Johnson

  • A Horse so good at washing clothes, A clothes-horse might be called, I s'pose.

  • Briggs—Well, then, get me a clothes-horse and a couple of sheets.

British Dictionary definitions for clothes-horse

clotheshorse

noun
  1. a frame on which to hang laundry for drying or airing
  2. informal a dandy
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for clothes-horse

n.

also clothes horse, "upright wooden frame for hanging clothes to dry," 1788, from clothes + horse (n.). Figurative sense of "person whose sole function seems to be to show off clothes" is 1850.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper