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hobbyhorse

[hob-ee-hawrs]

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SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR hobbyhorse ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a stick with a horse's head, or a rocking horse, ridden by children.

a figure of a horse, attached at the waist of a performer in a morris dance, pantomime, etc.

a pet idea or project.

Origin of hobbyhorse

First recorded in 1550–60; hobby¹ + horse

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for hobbyhorse

hobby, cockhorse

Examples from the Web for hobbyhorse

Contemporary Examples of hobbyhorse

You can get “money, Nobels… celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse….”
No One’s Going to Challenge Hillary Clinton
Robert Shrum
May 10, 2014
Obama came out for medical malpractice reform, a GOP hobbyhorse roughly forever (although the devil is in the details).
A Grownup Speech to Please Folks at Home, Not Pundits
Howard Kurtz
January 25, 2011
That you must carry everyone with you, swelling the ranks, is a hard-ridden Wasp hobbyhorse.
The Last of the Wasps
Tad Friend
September 27, 2009

Historical Examples of hobbyhorse

And when he faced that, he left the hobbyhorse where it was under the wall and went into the street.
Christmas
Zona Gale
Now for a short ride on my chief (at present) hobbyhorse, viz.
More Letters of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Sheard was on his hobbyhorse, and there were few there disposed to follow him.
The Sins of Sverac Bablon
Sax Rohmer
Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne.
Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3)
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Once active members of real Society; no woman could go back to "society," any more than a roughrider could return to a hobbyhorse.
Our Androcentric Culture, or The Man Made World
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

British Dictionary definitions for hobbyhorse

hobbyhorse

noun

a toy consisting of a stick with a figure of a horse's head at one end

another word for rocking horse

a figure of a horse attached to a performer's waist in a pantomime, morris dance, etc

a favourite topic or obsessive fixed idea (esp in the phrase on one's hobbyhorse)

verb

(intr) nautical (of a vessel) to pitch violently

Word Origin for hobbyhorse

C16: from hobby 1, originally a small horse, hence sense 3; then generalized to apply to any pastime

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