Houyhnhnm

[hoo-in-uh m, hwin-uh m, win-]

noun

(in Swift's Gulliver's Travels) one of a race of horses endowed with reason, who rule the Yahoos, a race of degraded, brutish creatures having human form.

Origin of Houyhnhnm

1726; apparently echoic; cf. whinny

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for houyhnhnm

Historical Examples of houyhnhnm

Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnm Gazette, giving an account of such an experiment.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Houyhnhnm, whin′im, n. one of the noble rational horse race in Gulliver's Travels.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M)
Various
The Houyhnhnm's legs are very well; the horse slipped on his side and not on his knees, and has received no sort of injury.
The Newcomes
William Makepeace Thackeray
No end to the wild pranks, the Houyhnhnm horse-play they had with drunken Gundling.
History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.)
Thomas Carlyle
Amid the inextinguishable horse-laughter (sincere but vacant) of the Houyhnhnm Olympus.
History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.)
Thomas Carlyle

Word Origin and History for houyhnhnm

Houyhnhnm

1727, in "Gulliver's Travels," coined by Swift to suggest whinnying.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper