Horsy

//ˈhɔːsi// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A child's term or name for a horse. childish, endearing
  2. 2
    A game where a child rides on the back of another, who is on all fours.

    "When he got in the house, if I'd left him to read his newspaper in quiet, then he'd play horsey with me, riding me around the house on his back; I'd put a pillow on his back for my saddle"

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, relating to, or similar to horses.

    "All the horses had been seized and sent to the front, but the whole place still smelt of horse-piss and rotten oats. I was at the barracks about a week. Chiefly I remember the horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls […]"

  2. 2
    Involved in breeding or riding horses.
  3. 3
    Clumsy, clunky, bulky, inelegant, or unrefined.

    "Near-synonym: crude"

Synonyms

All synonyms
asininebovidbovinecapridcaprinecowish

Example

More examples

"All the horses had been seized and sent to the front, but the whole place still smelt of horse-piss and rotten oats. I was at the barracks about a week. Chiefly I remember the horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls […]"

Etymology

From horse + -y. Cognate with Middle Low German rössich (“horselike, equipped with a horse”).

Related phrases

on all fours

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