ˈhorse-collar
The collar of a horse.
to grin through a horse-collar: see quot. 1801. Hence allusively, as in quot. 1878.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 247/2 Horsys colere, eph(ipp)ium, columbar. 1497 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 101 Hors-colers, l. vij. 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Meléna, a horse collar. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iv. iii. §31 The Grinning Match is performed by two or more persons..each of them having his head thrust through a horse's collar. 1878 Black Goldsmith xiii. 111 The jokes..are of the poorest sort. The horse-collar is never far off. 1881 Besant & Rice Chapl. of Fleet i. x, Bawling a comic song while he grins through a horse-collar. |
b. Comb., as horsecollar-maker.
| 1580 Faversham Reg. (MS.), Richard Cookes, a horse⁓kollermaker. 1897 Daily News 30 Apr. 3/5 A horse-collar maker, an Army Reserve man. |