Dictionary

carthorse en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (General-American) audio

Etymology

From Middle English carthors, cartehors, from Old English crætehors (“a carthorse”), equivalent to cart + horse.

Meanings

1. A large, strong horse used for pulling heavy loads.
   • He is not a man of independent fortune, for he works like a carthorse. 1852, Charles Dickens, Household Words:
   • Athelstan Arundel walked home[…], foaming and raging. […] He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them. 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16:
   • The blacksmith's forge shone bright on the opposite side of the way, and the proprietor had the hind-leg of a carthorse in his leather-coated lap. 1840, Horace Smith, editor, Memoirs, Letters, and Comic Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, of the Late James Smith:

Forms