Foal
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A young horse or other equine, especially just after birth or less than a year old.
- 2 a young horse wordnet
- 3 A young boy who assisted the headsman by pushing or pulling the tub. historical
- 1 To give birth to (a foal); to bear offspring. ambitransitive
"All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled."
- 2 give birth to a foal wordnet
Example
More examples"Tying his foal to the vineyard, and his ass, O my son, to the vine, he shall wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape."
Etymology
From Middle English fole, from Old English fola, from Proto-West Germanic *folō, from Proto-Germanic *fulô, from pre-Germanic *pl̥Hon-, from Proto-Indo-European *pōlH- (“animal young”) (cognate with Saterland Frisian Foole, West Frisian fôle, foalle, Dutch veulen, German Low German Fohl, German Fohlen, Fohle, Swedish fåle; compare also Ancient Greek πῶλος (pôlos), Latin pullus, Albanian pelë (“mare”), Old Armenian ուլ (ul, “kid, fawn”). Related to filly.
Related phrases
More for "foal"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.