Idioms about horse
Origin of horse
OTHER WORDS FROM horse
horseless, adjectivehorselike, adjectiveun·der·horse, verb (used with object), un·der·horsed, un·der·hors·ing.WORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH horse
hoarse, horseWords nearby horse
MORE ABOUT HORSE
Where does the word horse come from?
A horse is a horse, of course, of course. And that’s basically true, etymologically speaking, too.
Horse comes from the Old English hors. The word has many cousins in Germanic languages, and might come from an ancient root meaning “to run.” If that’s the case—then of course!
At the same time, that Old English hors has no relation to hors d’oeuvre, French for “outside the main course.”
And the word hoarse, meaning “having harsh or husky sound,” is a homonym of horse. While the words sound the same and are nearly spelled the same, they have different histories.
Now that you know how horses got their name, why not find out how some of our other most beloved pets got theirs in the slideshow: “Where Do The Words For Our Pets Come From?”
Did you know … ?
Humans domesticated horses, the quintessential riding animal, at least 6,000 years ago. Horses have had a gigantic impact on civilization, used for travel, food cultivation, sport, warfare, and many other functions.
The impact of horses on humans is evident in the English language, too. The word has been applied to everything from gymnastics (e.g., pommel horse) to carpentry (sawhorse) to chess (the knight piece) to various informal terms (horse as slang for “man, fellow”) and expressions, e.g., healthy as a horse and I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse.