Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A young female horse, especially a racehorse less than five years old, or a young female of another equine species.
  • noun Informal A lively, high-spirited girl or young woman.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To foal, as a mare.
  • noun A female colt or foal; a young mare.
  • noun A young woman; a lively, hoydenish, or wanton girl.
  • noun Synonyms Colt, etc. See pony.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A female foal or colt; a young mare. Cf. colt, foal.
  • noun colloq. A lively, spirited young girl.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A young female horse.
  • noun dated A young attractive female.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a young female horse under the age of four

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English filli, from Old Norse fylja; see pau- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse fylja (whence Danish føl).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word filly.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "to play" in Nadsat

    January 7, 2009