ˈrocking-horse
[rocking ppl. a.]
A wooden horse mounted on rockers for children to ride upon with a rocking motion. Also fig.
| 1724 in N. & Q. (1942) 7 Feb. 76/1 Rocking Horse. William Bird, turner, just without Newgate. c 1804 H. Knapp in Etoniana 225 Who..Makes Pegasus a rocking-horse. 1826 Hone Every-day Bk. I. 292 Before I had ridden anything but my rocking horse. 1869 Trollope He knew, etc. lxxviii. (1878) 433 The boy is here, you may be sure..; the rocking-horse makes that certain. |
| attrib. 1834 West India Sk. Bk. I. 48 Porpoises..pursued their course with a sort of rocking-horse motion on the surface. 1871 Lowell Wks. (1890) IV. 23 Common⁓place set to this rocking-horse jig irritates the nerves. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 495 Result of the rockinghorse races. 1936 F. R. Leavis Revaluation iv. 112 Prior takes happily to those anapaestic, rocking-horse rhythms. 1964 D. Varaday Gara-Yaka vii. 64 Then she bounded back in rocking⁓horse cheetah gait. |