hobbyhorse
[hob-ee-hawrs]
- rocking horse,
- a figure of a horse, attached at the waist of a performer in a morris dance, pantomime, etc.
- a pet idea or project.
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Origin of hobbyhorse
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for hobbyhorse
Contemporary Examples
You can get “money, Nobels… celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse….”
Obama came out for medical malpractice reform, a GOP hobbyhorse roughly forever (although the devil is in the details).
That you must carry everyone with you, swelling the ranks, is a hard-ridden Wasp hobbyhorse.
Historical Examples
And when he faced that, he left the hobbyhorse where it was under the wall and went into the street.
ChristmasZona Gale
Now for a short ride on my chief (at present) hobbyhorse, viz.
More Letters of Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Sheard was on his hobbyhorse, and there were few there disposed to follow him.
The Sins of Sverac BablonSax 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 WorldCharlotte Perkins Gilman
hobbyhorse
- 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)
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- (intr) nautical (of a vessel) to pitch violently
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Word Origin
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
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