Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Something used as a toy horse, such as the knee of an adult or a rocking horse.
- noun A horse added to a team of horses to assist a wagon through high water or over difficult terrain.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A child's rocking-horse or hobby-horse: commonly used in the adverbial phrase on cockhorse, a-cockhorse, on horseback, or as if on horseback (as when a child rides on a broomstick); hence, in an elevated position; elated; on the high horse.
- Mounted as on a hobby-horse, or as if on horseback.
- Proud; upstart.
- Astride.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A child's rocking-horse.
- noun rare A high or tall horse.
- adjective Lifted up, as one is on a tall horse.
- adjective Lofty in feeling; exultant; proud; upstart.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Lifted up, as one is on a tall horse.
- adjective Lofty in feeling; exultant; proud; upstart.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun anything used as a toy horse (such as a rocking horse or one knee of an adult)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Xenophon, in his Sympos. brings in Socrates as a principal actor, no man merrier than himself, and sometimes he would [3516] ride a cockhorse with his children. — equitare in arundine longa.
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I take Heaven to witness, after all my jesting, my heart is innocent, and the sports of my pen just like those of my infancy when I rode cockhorse on a stick.
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_ (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the saddle) _ The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop.
Ulysses James Joyce 1911
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He may be a bit of a Republican: but really in this country Republicans are fighting with the shadow of an old hat and a cockhorse.
Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith George Meredith 1868
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That conqueror of circumstances will, the dullest soul may begin predicting, return on his cockhorse to favour and authority.
Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith George Meredith 1868
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That conqueror of circumstances will, the dullest soul may begin predicting, return on his cockhorse to favour and authority.
Beauchamp's Career — Volume 1 George Meredith 1868
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'But "the shadow of an old hat and a cockhorse": what does that mean?'
Beauchamp's Career — Volume 6 George Meredith 1868
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'But "the shadow of an old hat and a cockhorse": what does that mean?'
Beauchamp's Career — Complete George Meredith 1868
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Republican: but really in this country Republicans are fighting with the shadow of an old hat and a cockhorse.
Beauchamp's Career — Volume 6 George Meredith 1868
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'But "the shadow of an old hat and a cockhorse": what does that mean?'
Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith George Meredith 1868
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