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Palfrey

name, noun

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname from Middle English. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A suburb of Walsall, Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England (OS grid ref SP0097). countable, uncountable
Noun
  1. 1
    A small horse with a smooth, ambling gait, popular in the Middle Ages with nobles and women for riding (contrasted with a warhorse). historical

    "Five warriors seiz'd me yestermorn, / Me, even me, a maid forlorn: / They choked my cries with force and fright, / And tied me on a palfrey white. / The palfrey was as fleet as wind, / And they rode furiously behind."

  2. 2
    especially a light saddle horse for a woman wordnet

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English palfrey, from Anglo-Norman palefrei (“steed”), from Old French palefroi, palefreid, from Late Latin paraverēdus (“post horse, spare horse”), from Ancient Greek παρά (pará) + Latin verēdus (“post horse”), from Gaulish *werēdos (“horse”) (compare Welsh gorwydd (“horse”)), from Proto-Celtic *uɸoreidos (“horse”). Doublet of prad. Compare Dutch paard and German Pferd.

Etymology 2

Metonymic occupational surname for a man responsible for the maintenance and provision of saddle-horses, from Middle English palfrey.

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