colt
/koʊlt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.57 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A young male horse.
noun
A youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
noun
A short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.
Example Sentences
- "The petty vices of boys are like the innocent kicks of colts, as yet imperfectly broken."
- "Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but / talk of his horse, and he makes it a great appropriation to / his own good parts that he can shoe him himself."
- "The bowling is more promising in the colts than in the eleven."
- "Never talk on't: / She hath been colted by him."
- "What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?"
- "They shook off their bridles and began to colt."
Etymology
From Middle English colt, from Old English colt, from Proto-Germanic *kultaz (“plump; stump; thick shape, bulb”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelt- (“something round, pregnant belly, child in the womb”), from *gel- (“to ball up, amass”). Cognate with Faroese koltur (“colt, foal”) Norwegian kult (“treestump”), Swedish kult (“young boar, piglet, boy, lad”) / Swedish kulting (“piglet”). Related to child.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /koʊlt/
- British English: /kəʊlt/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.