Definitions

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

  • noun A flat U-shaped metal plate fitted and nailed to the bottom of a horse's hoof for protection.
  • noun A U-shaped object similar to a horseshoe.
  • noun A game in which players toss horseshoes or horseshoe-shaped metal pieces at a stake so as to encircle it or come closer to it than the other players.
  • transitive verb To fit with horseshoes.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Nautical, a composition strap bent in the form of a horseshoe and used for fastening the stem to the keel.
  • noun A shoe for a horse, consisting commonly of a narrow plate of iron bent into a form somewhat resembling the letter U, so as to accommodate itself to the shape of the horse's foot.
  • noun Anything shaped like a horseshoe.
  • noun In zoology: A horseshoe-crab.
  • noun A bivalve mollusk, Lutraria elliptica. Also called clump.
  • noun plural The game of quoits, in which horseshoes are often used for pitching.
  • To provide with horseshoes, or shape like a horseshoe.
  • In architecture, to carry inward at the imposts, as an arch, so as to bring it approximately to the form of a horseshoe.

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

  • noun A shoe for horses, consisting of a narrow plate of iron in form somewhat like the letter U, nailed to a horse's hoof.
  • noun Anything shaped like a horsehoe, such as a U-shaped bend in a river.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The Limulus or horsehoe crab.
  • noun A game in which horseshoes or horseshoe-shaped objects (usually made of metal) are thrown at either of two stakes fixed in the ground at a distance of 30 to 40 feet apart. The player stands at or near one stake and throws several the horseshoes at the other stake. Points are scored when the player throws the horseshoe so that it surrounds the stake; fewer points are scored if the horseshoe is close to but not surrounding the stake. The players take turns and the first player to achieve the target score wins.
  • noun (Med.) an old name for the condition of the skull in children, in which the sutures are too open, the coronal suture presenting the form of a horsehoe.
  • noun an artificial magnet in the form of a horsehoe.
  • noun See Horsenail.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a bat of the genus Rhinolophus, having a nasal fold of skin shaped like a horsehoe.

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

  • noun The U-shaped metallic shoe of a horse.
  • noun A U-shaped piece of metal used to play the game horseshoes.
  • noun The U shape of a horseshoe.
  • noun bodybuilding, slang A well-developed set of triceps brachii muscles.
  • noun logic The symbol .
  • verb To apply horseshoes to a horse.

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

  • noun U-shaped plate nailed to underside of horse's hoof
  • verb equip (a horse) with a horseshoe or horseshoes
  • noun game equipment consisting of an open ring of iron used in playing horseshoes

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From horse + shoe.

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Examples

  • Then he effected a corner in horseshoe nails, and they circulated at par with legal tender, four to the dollar, till an unexpected consignment of a hundred barrels or so broke the market and forced him to disgorge his stock at a loss.

    AT THE RAINBOW'S END 2010

  • It seems that Francis 'success on the whatever you call a horseshoe lane (pitch, field, alley, court?) is unrivaled in other sports.

    Daniel Adler: Finally, A Post About Horseshoes and Cricket 2010

  • Then he effected a corner in horseshoe nails, and they circulated at par with legal tender, four to the dollar, till an unexpected consignment of a hundred barrels or so broke the market and forced him to disgorge his stock at a loss.

    At the Rainbow's End 1901

  • Francis 'success on the whatever you call a horseshoe lane (pitch, field, alley, court?) is unrivaled in other sports.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com 2010

  • For example, we are going to be building a horseshoe which is a traditional ballet opera house because we believe that the horseshoe is the most intimate and attractive room for performances, one that creates the closest contact between performer and audience.

    Possibilities of Great Richness 1989

  • He could peer right into that enormous horseshoe from the Lorelei’s roof, and that’s how he watched Yankee games; even with binoculars he couldn’t see very much, but he could tell when the Yankees were at bat from the tumult of the crowd.

    Lorelei 2010

  • He could peer right into that enormous horseshoe from the Lorelei’s roof, and that’s how he watched Yankee games; even with binoculars he couldn’t see very much, but he could tell when the Yankees were at bat from the tumult of the crowd.

    Lorelei 2010

  • He could peer right into that enormous horseshoe from the Lorelei’s roof, and that’s how he watched Yankee games; even with binoculars he couldn’t see very much, but he could tell when the Yankees were at bat from the tumult of the crowd.

    Lorelei 2010

  • X-rays revealed that he had a conjoined kidney called a horseshoe, and though cystic, it was functional.

    Annabelle Gurwitch: We're Praying For You 2008

  • The idea is that this is the core of the transit system: the OCP identifies the need to densify, and the horseshoe will be the axis along which this development will occur.

    The Abbotsford Report « Stephen Rees's blog 2008

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