coach horse
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of coach horse
First recorded in 1580–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Anderson is like the family coach horse," Novelist William Faulkner once said; "He's dependable, you can trust him to take the children to Sunday school safely.
From Time Magazine Archive
His head was back-flung, his arms akimbo, and he showed a hock action, despite his age, that would have inspired a coach horse with bitter envy.
From The Red Debt Echoes from Kentucky by MacDonald, Everett
Those that uses to be where the buffes be are not so bigg, but about the bignesse of a coach horse.
From Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson by Radisson, Pierre Esprit
Only if he is very ambitious of sight-seeing need he have recourse to coach, horse, or the popular American—but acclimatised—buggy.
From Australian Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil by Willoughby, Howard
I am like the old hackney coach horse, Mr. Weller—or is it Mr. Jingle—tells us of; if the shafts were drawn away I should probably collapse.
From Paul Kelver, a Novel by Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
