horse latitudes, n. pl.
[Origin of the name uncertain: see the quots. for statements and conjectures.]
The belt of calms and light airs which borders the northern edge of the N.E. trade-winds.
| 1777 G. Forster Voy. round World II. 581 The latitudes where these calms chiefly reign, are named the horse-latitudes by mariners..because they are fatal to horses and other cattle which are transported to the last mentioned continent [America]. 1826 H. N. Coleridge West Ind. 330 A dead calm for five days in the horse latitudes. 1850 Maury Notice to Mariners (ed. 2) 10. 1851 ― Winds & Currents 38. 1860 ― Phys. Geog. Sea (Low) §514. 1883 R. H. Scott Elem. Meteorol. xiv. 268 The Horse Latitudes, a title which Mr. Laughton derives from the Spanish El Golfo de las Yeguas, the Mares' Sea, from its unruly and boisterous nature..in contradistinction to the Trade-wind zone, El Golfo de las Damas, so called from the pleasant weather to be met with there. |