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 hrẽsh,
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, Bull. New 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.