Bosal

//boʊˈsæl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A type of noseband used on a horse.
  2. 2
    Alternative form of bozal or bossale (slave born in Africa and recently brought to a colony). alt-of, alternative, uncommon

    "At about the same time Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp, a Moravian missionary in the Danish West Indies, recorded that some Kongos on the island performed "a certain type of baptism on the bosals [recently arrived slaves] who desire it.""

Synonyms

All synonyms
nosebandnoseband

Example

More examples

"At about the same time Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp, a Moravian missionary in the Danish West Indies, recorded that some Kongos on the island performed "a certain type of baptism on the bosals [recently arrived slaves] who desire it.""

Etymology

From Spanish bosal, variant of bozal (“noseband; slave”). (The sense "noseband" is specifically via Mexican Spanish and was originally found in the Southwestern US.) Doublet of bozal and bossale.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.