carthorse

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans spoken

A carthorse is a heavy horse bred to pull loads. A great carthorse.

The breeds are enormous and unusually gentle, since a nervous horse of that size is useless. A carthorse can pull several times its own weight on a good surface.

Definitions of carthorse

1nouncarthorseA heavy horse bred to pull loads.B2
“The carthorse stood eighteen hands and never once shied.”

carthorse is a horse.

Where it comes from

Old English craetehors, cart plus horse.

Old English
crætehors — a carthorse
Middle English
carthors
English, today
carthorse

From Middle English carthors, cartehors, from Old English crætehors (“a carthorse”), equivalent to cart + horse.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

← Vocabulary

carthorse

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans spoken

A carthorse is a heavy horse bred to pull loads. A great carthorse.

The breeds are enormous and unusually gentle, since a nervous horse of that size is useless. A carthorse can pull several times its own weight on a good surface.

Definitions of carthorse

1nouncarthorseA heavy horse bred to pull loads.B2
“The carthorse stood eighteen hands and never once shied.”

carthorse is a horse.

Where it comes from

Old English craetehors, cart plus horse.

Old English
crætehors — a carthorse
Middle English
carthors
English, today
carthorse

From Middle English carthors, cartehors, from Old English crætehors (“a carthorse”), equivalent to cart + horse.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA