hackney

See also: Hackney

English

Etymology

From Middle English hakeney, from the placename Hackney (formerly a town; now a borough of London), used for grazing horses before sale, from Old English *Hacan īeġ (“Haca's Island”, literally “Hook's Island”). The Old French haquenée (“ambling mare for ladies”), Latinized in England to hakeneius, is originally from the English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhækni/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Audio (General American):

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• Rhymes: -ækni

Noun

hackney (countable and uncountable, plural hackneys)

1. (archaic) An ordinary horse.
3. A carriage for hire or a cab.
   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 186:

     "Mamma would die if she knew. The boy," replied Georgiana, "walked with us to Oxford Street, and we took a hackney-coach. Will Mrs. Gooch ever forgive us for getting out of it at her door?"

4. A horse used to ride or drive.
5. A breed of English horse.
6. (archaic) A hired drudge; a hireling; a prostitute.
7. (archaic, uncountable) Inferior writing; literary hackwork.
   • quoted in 1972, Pat Rogers, Grub Street: Studies in a Subculture (page 384)

     Not that the existence of Grub street is to be doubted: it was, indeed, a grim actuality, and many a garreter realised by experience
     How unhappy's the fate
     To live by one's pate
     And to be forced to write hackney for bread.

Derived terms

• hack
• hackney cab
• hackney carriage
• hackneyed
• hackneyer
• hackneyman
• hackney writer

Translations

ordinary horse

• Finnish: hevonen (fi)

carriage for hire or a cab

• Bulgarian: наемна кола f (naemna kola)
• Finnish: vossikka (fi)
• Ido: fiakro (io)

horse used to ride or drive

• Bulgarian: наемен кон m (naemen kon)
• Finnish: ratsuhevonen (fi), ratsu (fi) (to ride); ajohevonen (to drive)
• French: haquenée (fr)

breed of English horse

• Finnish: hackney
• French: hackney (fr)

hired drudge; hireling; prostitute

• Finnish: vosu (fi) (prostitute)

Adjective

hackney (not comparable)

1. Offered for hire.

   hackney coaches

2. (figuratively) Much used; trite; mean.

   hackney authors

   • a. 1685, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, The Ghost of the old House of Commons to the new one appointed to meet at Oxford.:

     his accumulative and hackney tongue

Translations

Offered for hire

• Bulgarian: наемен (bg) (naemen)

Much used

• Portuguese: batido (pt), trivial (pt), banal (pt), corriqueiro (pt)

Verb

hackney (third-person singular simple present hackneys, present participle hackneying, simple past and past participle hackneyed)

1. (transitive) To make uninteresting or trite by frequent use.
2. (transitive) To use as a hackney.
3. (transitive) To carry in a hackney coach.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task:

     […] To her, who, frugal only that her thrift / May feed excesses she can ill afford, / Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; […]

Translations

to make uninteresting or trite by frequent use

• Japanese: 使い古す (ja) (tsukaifurusu)