colt

See also: colț

English

Wikipedia

A mare and colt.

Etymology

From Middle English colt, from Old English colt (“young donkey, young camel”), 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 Norwegian kult (“treestump”), Swedish kult (“young boar, boy, lad”). Related to child.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəʊlt/, /kɔʊlt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /koʊlt/
  • also IPA^(key): /kl̩t/
    • Homophone: cult

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊlt

Noun

colt (plural colts)

1. A young male horse.
2. A youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, I. ii. 38:

     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.

3. (nautical) A short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.

Derived terms

• colt's tooth

Translations

young male horse

• Albanian: mëz
• Armenian: մտրուկ (mtruk), քուռակ (hy) (kʿuṙak)
• Aromanian: mãndzu
• Bulgarian: жребче (bg) m (žrebčé)
• Catalan: poltre m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 駒 (zh), 驹 (zh) (jū) (colt of filly), 駒子, 驹子 (zh) (jūzi), 小雄馬, 小雄马 (xiǎo xióng mǎ)

• Czech: hříbě (cs) n
• Dutch: hengstveulen n
• Faroese: koltur n
• Finnish: varsa (fi), orivarsa
• French: poulain (fr) m
• German: Hengstfohlen n, männliches Fohlen n, männliches Füllen n, Hengstfüllen n
• Irish: bromach m
• Italian: puledro (it) m
• Japanese: 雄の子馬 (osu no ko-uma)
• Latgalian: kumeļs m
• Latin: equuleus m
• Latvian: kumeļš m

• Lithuanian: kumeliukas m
• Macedonian: ждребе n (ždrébe)
• Malay: kuda jantan muda
• Maltese: mohor m, felu m
• Navajo: łéʼéyázhí
• Norwegian: hingstføll n
• Polish: źrebak (pl) m
• Portuguese: potro (pt) m, poldro (pt) m
• Romanian: mânz (ro) m
• Russian: жеребёнок (ru) m (žerebjónok) (colt of filly), жеребчик (ru) m (žerébčik)
• Scottish Gaelic: capall m, bromach m, loth f, lothag f, searrach m, biorach(-eich) m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ждребе n, ждријебе f (colt of filly)

  Roman: ždrebe n, ždrijebe (sh) n (colt of filly)

• Slovene: žrebe (sl) n
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: žrěbc m

• Spanish: potranco m, potro (es) m
• Taos: kòw’ȕ’úna
• Turkish: tay (tr)
• Ukrainian: лоша n (lošá)
• Volapük: (♂♀) jevodül (vo), (♂) hijevodül (vo), (♀) jijevodül (vo)
• Wolof: mol mi

novice

• French: jeunot (fr) m
• Portuguese: novato (pt) m

• Romanian: novice (ro) m, f, începător (ro) m

rope

• Russian: линёк (ru) m (linjók)

See also

• stallion, mare, foal, filly, horseling

Verb

colt (third-person singular simple present colts, present participle colting, simple past and past participle colted)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To horse; to get with young.
   • 1610, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Cymbeline, II. iv. 133:

     Never talk on't: / She hath been colted by him.

2. (obsolete, transitive) To befool.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, II. ii. 36:

     What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

3. To frisk or frolic like a colt; to act licentiously or wantonly.
   • Spenser

     They shook off their bridles and began to colt.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Anagrams

• clot