ˈhorse-head
1. a. The head of a horse. b. A head like that of a horse. c. The representation of a horse's head.
| ? a 1400 Arthur 394 Hyt was so oryble & so greet, More þan any Horse heed. 1551 T. Wilson Logike (1580) 21 b, What idiote knoweth not, except he had a Horse hedde, that here the sence is altered? 1601 Holland Pliny II. 337 The haire which is curried from the horsehead or buttock. 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry iii. xiii. (1611) 126 He beareth gules a Horsehead couped argent. 1827 ‘Mark Twain’ More Tramps Abr. lxvii, The long horse-heads and very sharp chins of the negroes of the picture-books. |
2. Racing. The length of a horse's head. Cf. head n.1 1 c.
| 1623 Massinger Dk. Milan ii. Wks. (Rtld.) 55/2 A devil of this size, Should they run for a wager to be spiteful, Gets not a horse-head of her. |
3. The stony inner cast of the fossil Trigonia.
| 1708 Phil. Trans. XXVI. 78 The Horse-head. This is only the Kernel or Stone included in the Wry-neb. 1851–6 Woodward Mollusca 272 Casts of the interior are called ‘horse-heads’ by the Portland quarry-men. |
4. Zool. A name of various fishes whose heads more or less resemble that of a horse, as the moon-fish, Selene vomer, and the Hippocampidæ.
| 1884 Bull. U.S. Nat. Museum No. 27. 438 Selene argentea..Horsehead. 1905 D. S. Jordan Guide to Study of Fishes II. xvii. 276 Selene vomer, the horse-head-fish, or look-down, is similarly but even more distorted. 1966 Leim & Scott Fishes of Atlantic Coast of Canada 251 Atlantic lookdown... Selene vomer (Linnaeus) 1758. Other common names: horsehead, moonfish. |
† 5. Mining. A kind of ventilator: see quots.
| 1747 Hooson Miner's Dict. K iij, Horsehead, a large kind of Trunk standing on the Top of the Rest..it is made broad and wide in the Top, and open on one side, and conveniently made to catch the Wind. 1789 Trans. Soc. Arts VII. 193 Thus the horse-head..drives the wheel..to the right or left. 1802 J. Mawe Min. Derbysh. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Horsehead, a large opening made of wood, to turn and put on to a fang or trunk, to convey wind from day-light. |