Names of the Horse

Note:  I have taken the liberty of quoting this chapter, originally entitled Nomenclature of the Horse, from the book The Empire of Equus by David P. Willoughby.  It just had too much information to absorb into the rest of this site.  I have, however, incorporated applicable portions of the chapter into my "Search Terms" page.  May you find this piece of work as interesting and informative as I did.

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Although the familiar terms, horse and mare, are used to distinguish a male and a female animal of this kind, the name "horse" is used also as a general term for both sexes of Equus caballus.  The latter is the "scientific" (Latin) name that was assigned in 1758 to the domesticated horse of Europe by the Swedish systematist, Carolus Linnaeus (he Latinized even his own name, from Carl von Linné).
    To the reader who is unfamiliar with the "scientific," or technical, system of classification established by Linnaeus, it may be explained that under this system all animals (also plants) are identified by two names, the first being the name of the genus to which the animal belongs, and the second the name of the species.  A genus is a division or category of classification between a family and a species.  Occasionally a third name is used to indicate a subspecies, variety, or geographic race of the species.  For example, the full scientific name of the Mongolian wild horse is Equus caballus przewalskii.  Here, however, the third name refers not to a geographic locality, but to the name of the person (Nikolai Mikhailovich Przevalski, a Russian explorer) after whom the subspecies was named.  The use in this manner either of a personal or a locality name is common zoological practice.
    Thus, in any modern language, among those familiar with the Linnaean system of classification, the Latin name Equus caballus is known to refer to the horse, while the third name--in this case przewalskii--indicates that the animal is sufficiently different from the common or domestic horse to be regarded as a subspecies or variety.  It should be noted that the generic name (in this case, Equus) is always capitalized, while the specific name (here, caballus), as well as the subspecific name, is written or printed in lower case italics.
    As to the origin of the name "horse," that appears to be lost in antiquity.  In Latin the classical name is equus* and the vulgar name caballus.**  Another Latin name is jumentum, from which comes the French jument (mare).  In Greek the name is hippos; in Anglo-Saxon it is hors.  In Old German the name was hros; in modern German it is Ross or Pferd, in Friesian (Holland) hars or hors, in Dutch paard, in Old Saxon and Icelandic hross, in Swedish hast, in Danish hëst, in Italian rozza, in Spanish caballo, in Russian loschad, in Polish kon, in Hungarian honfoglalo, and in French cheval.  From the latter have come the words chevalier, chivalry, chivalrous; while from the Latin caballus have come cavalier (a horseman, or knight), cavalry (a body of horsemen), and cavalcade (a parade of persons on horseback).  Other Latin words pertaining to the horse are equinus and equus, from which are derived our words equine, meaning horselike; equitation and equestrian, pertaining to horsemanship and to a horseback rider, respectively; equerry, an officer having charge of the horses of a prince or nobleman; and equidae, meaning the horse family.
    In that large Asiatic area between China and Siberia known as Mongolia, the people of which have been horsemen from the earliest historic times, the domestic horse is known as morin, and the wild horse (Equus caballus przewalskii) as taki.  The Hindustanian word for horse is kuda or huda.  The word among the Malayans, some 2000 miles to the southeast, is exactly the same.  This would seem to prove that the early Malayan tribesmen who introduced the horse into that region became familiar with the animal through the Hindus.
    The name horse, according to one source, is descended, through the Old German hros, from the Sanscrit (sacred Hindu) word hrsh, meaning to neigh, so that the name means "the neighing animal."  A more generally accepted explanation, however, is that the name has come to us from the Anglo-Saxon word hors, which signifies swiftness; and it is possibly connected with the Latin currere (whence our word courier), to run.***  Thus derived, the name horse means "the swift-running animal."  In ancient Iran (Persia) the horse was named aspa, from the old Aryan root ac or ak (to go rapidly).  According to Duerst, with reference to the primitive Iranian, "Just as he saw his swift horse cover long distances in a short time, he saw the sun go over the immense vault of heaven in a short time, So he called the sun, in his Avesta, by the name of 'aurvat-aspa'...the swift-horsed."
    At least two series of names for the horse derive from the Greek words hippos and kaballos.  From hippos have come many compound words, among them hippopotamus, meaning "river-horse"; hippocampus, meaning "sea-horse"; hippodrome, meaning "horse-course" (or race-course for horses and chariots); hippotigris, meaning "tiger-horse," and used by the Greeks and Romans to designate the zebra; hippology, the study of the horse; and such names for fossil horses as hipparion, meaning "pony," hippidium, "being like a horse," and various names ending in hippus, such as merychippus ("a ruminating horse").  From the Greek kaballos came the Latin caballus, the Italian cavallo, the Spanish caballo, and the French cheval.  The Dutch name for the horse, paard, was used by the early Cape Colonists to denote the mountain zebra, which they called wilde paard.  Curiously, the quagga, which was a more horselike animal in every way, they called wilde esel (wild ass).
    Even certain present-day personal names have their origin in ancient names for the horse.  The masculine name Philip, for example, is a shortened form of the Greek Philippos (philos, "loving," plus hippos, "horse"), meaning "a lover of horses."  The corresponding feminine name is Philippa.  The familiar word hobby, meaning an absorbing pastime or interest, is taken from hobbyhorse, which in turn comes from the Middle English word hoby, "an ambling pony."  The common name Dobbin, for a workhorse, is from the personal name Dobbin, from Robin, diminutive of Robert.  The name "Jockey," applied to the rider of a racehorse, comes from the Scotch word Jockie, a diminutive of Jock, or Jack, a nickname for John.
    As with other well-known domesticated animals, there are also many names to designate the two sexes and the young of the horse.  The commonly used name of the uncastrated adult male, stallion, means "the horse at stall"; that is, one kept for breeding.  This is derived from the Low Latin stallum (a stall), the Old High German stal (a stable), and the Old French estallon.  It corresponds to the Modern French étalon and the Italian stallone.  The Modern German equivalent is hengst.  A stallion is also sometimes called an "entire."  A castrated male horse is known as a gelding (from the Icelandic geldr, meaning barren).  A ridgel, or ridgeling, is a horse half-castrated or with only one descended testicle.  The word stud is sometimes used as a synonym for stallion, but more often is used to denote a collection of horses and mares for breeding, also the stable or place where they are kept.  Originally, however, this word (from the Anglo-Saxon stōd) meant a drove of wild horses.  From stod came also the Anglo-Saxon stēda, and from this the English word steed, meaning especially a war horse, or one used for occasions of state or display; the term is now largely restricted to literary or poetic use.  Another name for a war horse is the familiar term charger.
    A stallion that is also a father or male parent is called a sire; and when a foal (see below) is of important lineage, as in the case of certain racehorses, we say that the foal was sired by his male parent.  A sire's sire is a grandsire, and so on.  A tail male is the sire line, or top line in a pedigree, back to the original sire.
    Mare, the name used for a female over four years of age (or younger, if bred to a stallion), is derived, through the Scottish mear and the Middle English mere, from the Anglo-Saxon mere or myre, meaning simply a female horse.  When the female is also a mother, it is customarily called a dam (French; from the Latin domina, feminine of dominus, master).  A broodmare is one kept exclusively for breeding.  A female parent's mother is called a granddam, or a second dam.  The term distaff side means the female line or bottom line in a pedigree, back to the tap root.  A yeld mare is one that has not borne a foal during the season; a barren mare.
    A young horse of either sex may be called a suckling but is more generally referred to as a foal (from the Middle English fole, from the Anglo-Saxon fola) until it reaches the weaning age (about five to six months), when it is called a weanling.  Beyond this age, if the sex is known, a young entire (uncastrated) male should be called a colt, and a young female a filly.  These terms apply until the animal has reached the adult stage, or four or five years of age.  Thereafter the erstwhile colt is called a horse, and the filly a mare.  To designate both the age and the sex of an immature animal, it is quite proper to use the terms filly foal, suckling colt, yearling filly, etc.  A racehorse, by the way, is regarded as being one year old on the first day of January following its birth, and its subsequent official "birthdays" are as of January 1.  A weanling is a foal which has been weaned but has not yet passed a January 1.
    Incidentally, the name colt (a word of Anglo-Saxon derivation) may be applied to a young male donkey, a zebra, or a camel, as well as to a young male horse.  The name filly is derived from the Old Norse fylia and the Anglo-Saxon fola, and means distinctively a female foal or a young mare.  Equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon fola are the Latin pullus and the Greek polos, all referring to a young horse of either sex.  The sons and daughters of a stallion are known as his get (not his gets).  The progeny, or offspring, of a mare are usually called her produce.
    The English name pony--the term generally applied to a horse 13 hands (52 inches) or less in height--was at an earlier time spelled powny.  The name is derived, probably through the Old French poulenet (diminutive of poulain, colt) and the Lower Latin pullanus, from the aforementioned Latin pullus, meaning a young animal.  "Pony" is also connected with the Greek polos, or foal, and ultimately with the English foal.  Thus, it would seem that the name pony was at first applied incorrectly, as an equivalent of the name foal, in the belief that all small horses were necessarily immature.  "Cob" is a name correctly applicable to a strong, thickset, short-legged horse of medium size (13.2 to 15 hands high).
    A palfrey is a saddle horse for the road, or for state occasions, as distinguished from a war horse (from the French palefroi, from the Lower Latin palafredus, an extra post horse).
    A Thoroughbred (the word being usually capitalized) is a horse especially bred and trained for racing under the saddle, and whose ancestry or pedigree can be traced back in all lines, without interruption, to forebears registered in the General Stud Book.  Hence, in point of having a clear, unmixed ancestry, the Thoroughbred may be regarded as purebred.  A horse, or other pedigreed animal, designated by the latter term, however, is not necessarily a Thoroughbred, and the two terms should not be used interchangeably.  The term "Thoroughbred" is completely designative, and it is superfluous to say "Thoroughbred horse."  The term "purebred" is customarily applied to horses, other than Thoroughbreds, which are free of alien blood, and which are registered, or are eligible to registry, in the record book of the breed to which they belong.
    A grade, or halfbred, horse is one resulting from a mating in which one parent is a Thoroughbred or purebred and the other is of unknown or mixed ancestry.  It is said that more than 90 percent of the horses in the United States can be so designated.  The term crossbred is used in reference to the breeding of a horse whose sire and dam are of different, but known, breeds.  If a cross involves two different species rather than breeds, the resulting offspring is known as a hybrid, and the practice as hybridization.
    As an instance of the extent to which the meaning of a word may change through use, there is the word nag, which today commonly refers to an old, no-good, broken-down horse.  Yet this name, which derives from the Dutch negge (after the Anglo-Saxon knegan, to neigh), originally meant a small horse, or a pony.  Other disparaging names for a tired, worn-out, useless horse are "plug" and "jade."  The latter word is probably a variant of the North English dialectal yaud and the Scottish yade, yad, or yaud, pertaining to a work horse, especially a mare.  These terms come, in turn, from the Old Norse, jalda, a mare, which is of English origin.  "Tit" is a name applied to a small or inferior horse; often a good little or young horse.  In France, a small horse, or cob, especially one used to pack or courier service in the army, is commonly called a bidet.  In early days, a pad, or pad-nag, was a horse ridden with a pad in place of a saddle, and often referred to as an "ambling pad."
    A jennet (or genet) is a small Spanish horse, the name coming from the native term ginete, signifying nag.  Ginete, in turn, was probably derived from Zenata, a Barbary tribe, with whose horses the Spanish horses were crossed.  In the United States, the term "jennet" denotes a female ass.
    In China and Thailand (Siam), curiously, the native name for the horse is ma, pronounced just like our abbreviation of the word Mother.
    Several centuries ago, in Europe, there was a great deal of discussion about an imaginary animal believed to have been produced by crossing a bull with a mare or jennet, or a horse or jackass with a cow.  The name given to this hypothetical creature was jumart, or jumar.  The name appeared suddenly in zoological literature in the middle of the sixteenth century, and the existence of the animal was given credence by many eminent scholars of the period.  As a result, widespread belief in the animal persisted for more than 200 years.  One of the first (about 1774) to doubt the existence of the jumart was the French naturalist Buffon.  Others were the physiologist Albrecht von Haller and the German naturalist J. F. Blumenbach.  It was not, however, until 1803 that the jumart was conclusively proved to be a myth.  In that year Leopold M. Caldani, an Italian anatomist, showed that there was no authentic case of the impregnation of a mare by a bull or of a cow by a stallion.  The so-called jumarts were really small hinnies or mules.  The word "jumart" was perhaps a corruption of the French word jument, meaning mare (from the Latin jumentum, horse).

* This would appear to be a common Indo-European term, in sound if not in spelling, since in Sanskrit it is acvas, in Irish ech, in Welsh eb, in Gaulish epona, etc.

** The word caballus comes from the horse's hollow hoof mark (a cavo pede) because, in walking, the sole of the foot leaves a hollow imprint that differs from the tracks of other animals.

*** Concisely, William Beebe has put it:  "The most reasonable derivation of the word horse is by way of the Old Teutonic horso, via the pre-Teutonic kurso, to the root kurs of the Latin currere, to run." -- taken from Charles William Beebe, Horses and Men, BullNew York Zool. Soc. 43, no. 6, (Nov.-Dec. 1940): 186.

Names for the Western Horse

    The vocabulary of the Western horseman abounds in picturesque terms, derived mainly from the Mexican or Spanish, describing the Western horse.  The name mustang is said to have come from the Spanish mesteño, a group of stockraisers.  Horses that escaped from a range controlled by a mesta and ran wild were called mesteños, the suffix eño meaning "pertaining to" or "belonging to."  Thus the name mustang signified a feral, rather than a true wild, horse; that is, a horse which, through having strayed and become ownerless, had largely reverted to the natural or wild state.  The man who chased the mesteños was called a mesteñero, or "mustanger."  A drove, or band, of mustangs was known as a manada.  Among the Indians, an outcast stallion was called by a name which meant "dog soldier"; and the white settlers adopted the same name referring to such rogue horses.  In South America, the typical cow-horse is called criollo (Spanish) or criolo (Portuguese), meaning "native," the name being a diminutive of the Spanish criado (servant).  A remuda (Spanish) is a relay of horses, from which are chosen those to be ridden for the day.
    The name bronco (or broncho) also comes from the Spanish, and means "rough," "wild," or "unruly."  This name was applied particularly to individual range horses (descended from the mustang breed) which possessed more than the usual amount of wildness and fighting ability.  And, as is well known, the cowboys who attempt to "break" these bucking, fighting, outlaw horses of unsavory reputation are called "bronco busters."  Such "bronco busting" is still to be seen in the annual rodeos held in the Western states.  Another name for a cowboy is "buckaroo."  This is a corruption of the Spanish (or Mexican) word vaquero, "a cowboy or herdsman," from vaca, "a cow."
    In the Northwest, a cow-horse, or cow-pony, is sometimes referred to as a cayuse.  This name was first applied to Indian ponies that had been brought, probably from Mexico through California, into the Northwest and developed by the Cayuse tribe of Indians living in Oregon.  Indeed, it would appear that the Cayuse is one of the very few characteristically Indian horses to have been purposely bred by them.  Nowadays the horses bred and trained especially for "cowboy" work on the large cattle ranches of the West are generally grouped under the term "stock horses."
    It should be pointed out that the Spanish names for the feral horses of the plains came into use only after such names had been introduced by Spanish-speaking cattlemen, about 1820-30.  Earlier, the large herds of horses on the prairies were commonly referred to as "wild horses."  Various places in which these horses had been particularly numerous are still known by such picturesque names as "Wild Horse Desert" (Texas); "Wild Horse Draw" and "Wild Horse Creek" (Kansas); "Bronco" (Texas); and so on.  In fact, in the state of Texas alone there are twenty-seven places named "Mustang Creek"; various "Horse Hollows"; and one town named "Wild Horse."
    A present-day range horse of mustang descent, if straggly, underfed, and of poor physical condition, is generally called a broomtail or fuzztail.  Sometimes the name used is bangtail; however, the original bangtail was a range steer whose tail had been "banged."  In roundups, it was customary to snip the tuft of the steer's tail so that the animal would not be counted a second time.  Thus, such a snip-tailed steer became a "bangtail."  In the owyhee badlands of Eastern Oregon--one of the last strongholds of "wild" horses in the West--the horses are (or were) known interchangeably as oreanas, slick ears, or broomtails.
    The pinto, so popular among the Indians, is a horse of mottled color, the name coming from the Spanish word pintado, meaning "painted."  In cowboy vernacular, such a horse is often called, simply, a "paint."  More specifically, if the markings of a pinto horse are white and black, the animal is to be called a piebald; and if white and any color other than black--such as bay, brown, or chestnut--a skewbald.  The word bald, by the way, comes from a Middle English word meaning "a white-faced horse."  Hence, the name piebald is particularly applicable to a horse that is not only of black and white mottling generally, but which has also a white face.  Another name for a pinto or spotted horse is a calico.
    The Spanish language is abundant in terms for designating the exact color characteristics of a horse.  The vocabulary was already extensive in Old Spain, but the vaqueros (cowboys) of Spanish America added to it.  A list of some of the principal Mexican terms used to denote peculiarities of color and markings, together with the English equivalents of the terms, was brought out in a book by W. A. Whatley in 1940.
    Certain colorations distinguish several breeds, or types, of horses now being developed and popularized in the West.  The name of that beautiful horse, the Palomino, is, according to one definition, taken from the more correct Spanish word, palomilla, meaning, among other things, "a cream-colored horse with white mane and tail."  In Mexico, Palominos were once known as "Isabellas," because of the circumstance that Queen Isabella II of Spain (who ruled from 1833 to 1868) used horses of this type to draw her royal coach.  Palominos with cream or white spots or patches are called "Palomino-Pintados."
    The name Appaloosa designates a type of Western stock horse of localized spotted coloration.  It is a corruption of the name, Palouse, of the region in Central Idaho and Eastern Washington where these horses were originally developed (from mustang stock) by the Nez Perce Indians.  Another type of spotted horse, often (though not invariably) having more extensive markings than the Appaloosa, is the Colorado Ranger.  This horse is being bred primarily, however, for cow-horse utility, and the coloration is of secondary importance.  The name albino is self-descriptive; although it has been only recently that a strain of American Albino horses has been developed.  In this connection, it is doubtful whether a true albino horse exists.  Those so-called are simply individuals approximating the condition generally, but having pink skin and colored eyes.
    Even the voice of the horse is interpreted differently by the peoples of different nations.  Whereas we (and other English-speaking people) say "neigh," the French interpret the sound as "en-nee," the Germans as "ee-ha-ha," the Spanish as "ha-ee-ee," the Russians as "pr-r-r," and the Japanese as "heen."
    When Jonathan Swift wrote his satirical romance, Gulliver's Travels, he gave to the horsepeople in his story the name "Houyhnhnms," a word ingeniously intended to express a horse's neigh or whinny.  Perhaps this was Swift's subtle way of injecting a few "horse-laughs" into his story!
    Although, strictly speaking, the name "horse" belongs only to the domesticated and wild or extinct members of the species Equus caballus, the term is often used by zoologists in a more inclusive sense.  From this broader point of view one may speak not only, for example, of the Arab horse, the Morgan horse, or the draft horse, but may include with these familiar domestic forms such wild species as zebras and the Asiatic hemionids or "half-asses," looking upon them all as "horses."  A less confusing procedure, however, is to call all forms other than E. caballus "members of the horse family."
    On the other hand, one may refer conveniently to certain early ancestors of the present-day horse as "three-toed horses," even though such ancestral animals were far more dissimilar zoologically from Equus caballus than are today's zebras and wild asses.  (Note:  I have left this paragraph for now, but since it deals with evolution I may remove it later; see note on home page of this website.)
    When Linnaeus in 1758 named the "typical" horse Equus caballus, he took as its representative the Norse horse, or pony, of Scandinavia.  Hence, in considering or evaluating other domestic breeds, or wild species of Equus caballus, it is well to bear in mind the distinguishing characters of Linnaeus's "Norse horse," which today is more generally called
Norwegian Fjord-horse.

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