colt
nounverbcommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//kəʊlt//
- United Kingdom/[kɔʊlt]/
- United Kingdom//kɒlt//
- United Kingdom//kəwlt//
A young male horse.
noun
- 1
A young male horse.
The petty vices of boys are like the innocent kicks of colts, as yet imperfectly broken.
- 2
A young crane (bird).
- 3
figurativeA youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but / talk of his horse, and he makes it a great appropriation to / his own good parts that he can shoe him himself.
- 4
figurativeA youthful or inexperienced person; a novice. A professional cricketer during his first season.
The bowling is more promising in the colts than in the eleven.
- 5
figurativeA youthful or inexperienced person; a novice. A person who sits as a juryman for the first time.
- 6
historicalA short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.
- 7
obsoleteA weapon formed by slinging a small shot to the end of a somewhat stiff piece of rope.
- 8
A young camel or donkey.
Etymology
From Middle English colt, from Old English colt, from Proto-Germanic *kultaz (“plump; stump; thick shape, bulb”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelt- (“something round, pregnant belly, child in the womb”), from *gel- (“to ball up, amass”). Cognate with Faroese koltur (“colt, foal”) Norwegian kult (“treestump”), Swedish kult (“young boar, piglet, boy, lad”) / Swedish kulting (“piglet”). Related to child.
verb
- 1
obsoleteTo horse; to get with young.
Never talk on't: / She hath been colted by him.
- 2
obsoleteTo befool.
What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?
- 3
To frisk or frolic like a colt; to act licentiously or wantonly.
They shook off their bridles and began to colt.
- 4
obsoleteTo haze (a new recruit), as by charging a new juryman a "fine" to be spent on alcoholic drink, or by striking the sole of his foot with a board, etc.
We watched our opportunity, seized him, and, laying him across a chest, we colted him with a boot-jack until we nearly killed him, he at the time suffering from numerous boils in the nates; and for all this he obtained no redress!
[…] his first appearance the jury duly "colted" him.
Forms
- plural
- colts
- past tense
- colted
- past participle
- colted
- present participle
- colting
- third person singular
- colts