river horse
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.57 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
1
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Example Sentences
- "The river-horse feeds upon the herbage of the Nile, and the behemoth is said to eat grass like an ox."
- "Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder."
- "It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids."
- "Here, before a feast that would prick the dead with appetite, were shapes of beasts with heads of men, asses, elephants, bulls, horses, swine, foxes, riverhorses, dromedaries; […]"
Etymology
Calque of Ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος (hippopótamos). Compare Middle English water hors (“hippopotamus”). By surface analysis, river + horse.