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
There's some awful mystery in this young woman," muttered Mr Clam, puffing like a broken-winded coach horse, "and if I live I'll find it out.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843 by Various
He was, however, well mounted on a coach horse of Mr. Wharton's and, clinging to the back of the animal with instinctive skill, he abandoned the rein to the beast.
From The Spy by Cooper, James Fenimore
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
Lady Teazle.—No—I swear I never did that: I deny the butler and the coach horse.
From The Ontario High School Reader by Marty, A.E.
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.
