gallop
/ˈɡæləp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.03 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The fastest gait of a horse, a two-beat stride during which all four legs are off the ground simultaneously.
noun
A rhythm consisting of an 8th note followed by two 16th notes, resembling a horse's gallop.
Example Sentences
- "Charlie and Marnie fought at brunch and then confessed their undying love for each other; Ray got promoted by his coffee-shop boss and then dumped by his croissant-purse-toting girlfriend; and Hannah, with a deadline looming, her OCD blaring, and all her friends elsewhere, desperately FaceTimed Adam—who took a shirtless, rom-commy gallop across Brooklyn to meet her."
- "A gallop rhythm: \drums{\repeat unfold4{wbl8wbh16 16"
- "The horse galloped past the finishing line."
- "Gallop lively down the western hill."
- "to gallop a horse"
- "In the 11th minute the German won possession in midfield and teed up the galloping Kieran Gibbs, whose angled shot was pushed by Kelvin Davies straight into the retreating Jos Hooiveld."
Etymology
From Middle English galopen (“to gallop”), from Old French galoper (compare modern French galoper), from Frankish *wala hlaupan (“to run well”), from *wala (“well”) + *hlaupan (“to run”), from Proto-Germanic *hlaupaną (“to run, leap, spring”), from Proto-Indo-European *klaup-, *klaub- (“to spring, stumble”). Possibly also derived from a deverbal of Frankish *walhlaup (“battle run”) from *wal (“battlefield”) from a Proto-Germanic word meaning "dead, victim, slain" from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“death in battle, killed in battle”) + *hlaup (“course, track”) from *hlaupan (“to run”). More at well, leap, valkyrie. See also the doublet wallop, coming from the same source through an Old Northern French variant.