hobbyhorse
Americannoun
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a stick with a horse's head, or a rocking horse, ridden by children.
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a figure of a horse, attached at the waist of a performer in a morris dance, pantomime, etc.
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a pet idea or project.
noun
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a toy consisting of a stick with a figure of a horse's head at one end
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another word for rocking horse
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a figure of a horse attached to a performer's waist in a pantomime, morris dance, etc
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a favourite topic or obsessive fixed idea (esp in the phrase on one's hobbyhorse )
verb
Etymology
Origin of hobbyhorse
Vocabulary lists containing hobbyhorse
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.
In 2017, the National Institutes of Health asked Hotez to meet with Kennedy to move him off the hobbyhorse of a vaccine-autism link.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 22, 2025
He has gone on to establish regular, silly characters - a romantic poet, a highwayman with a hobbyhorse, and a running story that sends up the allure of the archetypal aloof hero.
From BBC • Aug. 19, 2022
The curtain falls on their son rocking on a hobbyhorse.
From New York Times • Mar. 11, 2022
I don’t mean to jump back on my hobbyhorse of complaining about lack of knowledge in tech journalism, but printing a claim like that is egregious.
From Slate • Oct. 22, 2013
Once Rolfe had made him a hobbyhorse, and once Elfred the Dane had made him a boat, but it had not seemed so fine as this one.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
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.
