horse

Universal Words noun, verb noun 1 a large animal with four legs, a MANE (= long thick hair on its neck) and a tail. Horses are used for riding on, pulling carriages, etc: He mounted his horse and rode off. * a horse and cart seealsoCOLT, FILLY, FOAL, GELDING, MARE, STALLION 2 = VAULTINGHORSE seealsoCLOTHESHORSE, HOBBYHORSE, ROCKINGHORSE, SEAHORSE, STALKINGHORSE, TROJANHORSE, WHITEHORSES IDIOMS (straight) from the horse's mouth (informal) (of information) given by sb who is directly involved and therefore likely to be accurate hold your horses (informal) used to tell sb that they should wait a moment and not be so excited that they take action without thinking about it first horses for courses (BrE) the act of matching people with suitable jobs or tasks: Only a skilled interpreter with teaching skills can teach interpreting. It is horses for courses. a one, two, three, etc. horse race a competition or an election in which there are only one, two, etc. teams or candidates with a chance of winning: The women's competition was a two horse race between last year's winners Surrey and the previous champions Essex. moreatBACKv., BARNn., CARTn., CHANGEv., DARKadj., DRIVEv., EAT, FLOG, GIFTn., HIGHadj., STABLEn., WILDadj. verb PHRASALVERBS horse about / around (informal) to play in a way that is noisy and not very careful so that you could hurt sb or damage sth: He fell through the window while horsing around with some friends.