red horse, red-horse U.S.
1. a. An American fish of the genus Moxostoma (esp. M. macrolepidota). b. The red-fish, Sciæna ocellata.
| 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. I. 663 Catfish, buffaloe-fish, red horse, eels [etc.]. 1818 Rafinesque in Smithson. Coll. (1877) XIII. ix. i. 13 Catostomus Erythrurus..Red Horse. 1877 Jordan Ibid. 32 The coloration [of the black-tail fallfish] is that of a young ‘Red-Horse’. 1884 Goode Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim. 372 The ‘Red Fish’ and ‘Red Horse’ of Florida and the Gulf States. Ibid. 614 The common ‘Red Horse’ or ‘Mullet’ abounds in most streams westward and southward of New York. |
2. A nickname given to natives of Kentucky.
| 1835 C. F. Hoffman Winter in West I. 210 The spokesman was evidently a ‘red-horse’ from Kentucky. 1835–40 Haliburton Clockm. (1862) 318 These last have all nicknames. There's the hoosiers of Indiana,..the red horses of Kentucky. |
3. slang (orig. Mil.). Corned beef.
| 1864 I. Jackson Let. 28 June in Some of Boys (1960) 184 Supper..is coffee & Red Hoss. 1905 J. Bowe With 13th Minnesota in Philippines 24 Of bean-soup, hard-tack, and red horse..we have had our fill. 1920 W. B. Ellington Company ‘A’, 23rd Engineers 27 We have red horse and rice pudding for dinner. 1941 J. Smiley Hash House Lingo 46 Red horse, corned beef. |