Tuesday 17 November 2009

Horse

HORSE

–noun
1. a large, solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped, Equus caballus, domesticated since prehistoric times, bred in a number of varieties, and used for carrying or pulling loads, for riding, and for racing.
2. a fully mature male animal of this type; stallion.
3. any of several odd-toed ungulates belonging to the family Equidae, including the horse, zebra, donkey, and ass, having a thick, flat coat with a narrow mane along the back of the neck and bearing the weight on only one functioning digit, the third, which is widened into a round or spade-shaped hoof.
4. something on which a person rides, sits, or exercises, as if astride the back of such an animal.
5. Also called trestle. a frame, block, etc., with legs, on which something is mounted or supported.
6. Gymnastics.
a. vaulting horse - a padded, somewhat cylindrical floor-supported apparatus, braced horizontally at an adjustable height, used for hand support and pushing off in vaulting.
b. a padded, somewhat cylindrical floor-supported apparatus, similar to pommel horse - a vaulting horse but having two graspable pommels on top, used by men for hand-supported balancing, rotating, and swinging manoeuvres.
7. Carpentry. an inclined beam, as a string, supporting the steps of a stair.
8. soldiers serving on horseback; cavalry.
9. Slang. a man; fellow.
10.Often, horses. Informal (horsepower)
a. a foot-pound-second unit of power, equivalent to 550 foot-pounds per second, or 745.7 watts.
b. Informal. the capacity to achieve or produce; strength or talent:
11.Horses, Slang. the power or capacity to accomplish something, as by having enough money, personnel, or expertise
12.Chess Informal. a knight.
13.Slang. a crib, translation, or other illicit aid to a student's recitation; trot; pony.
14.Mining. a mass of rock enclosed within a lode or vein.
15.Nautical. a rope, spar, or rod (also called traveller).
16.Shipbuilding. a mould of a curved frame, especially one used when the complexity of the curves requires laying out at full size.
17.Slang. Heroin
–verb (used with object)
18.to provide with a horse or horses.
19.to set on horseback.
20.to set or carry on a person's back or on one's own back.
21.Carpentry. to cut notches for steps into (a carriage beam).
22.to move with great physical effort or force: It took three men to horse the trunk up the stairs.
23.Slang.
a. to make (a person) the target of boisterous jokes.
b. to perform boisterously, as a part or a scene in a play.
24.Nautical.
a. to caulk (a vessel) with a hammer.
b. to work or haze (a sailor) cruelly or unfairly.
25.Archaic. to place (someone) on a person's back, in order to be flogged.
–verb (used without object)
26.to mount or go on a horse.
27.(of a mare) to be in heat.
28.Vulgar. to have coitus.
–adj.
29.of, for, or pertaining to a horse or horses.
30.drawn or powered by a horse or horses.
31.mounted or serving on horses: horse troops.
32.unusually large.



If joking humans can horse around,
Do boisterous horses human about when joking?

1 comment:

Dina said...

Love the way you stand things on their head.

(And the arena transports me back half a century to my riding lessons . . .)