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sea horse

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: seahorse

English

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A sea horse (fish)

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English sehors (“walrus”), equivalent to sea +‎ horse. Probably a calque of obsolete French cheval de mer or directly of Late Latin caballus marinus.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sea horse (plural sea horses)

A 1913 £1 "Seahorse" stamp.
  1. Any of the small marine fish of the genus Hippocampus that have a horselike head and swim upright.
  2. (obsolete) The walrus.
    • 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 9, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I:
      One morning we had vast quantities of sea-horses about the ship, which neighed exactly like any other horses.
  3. (mythology) Synonym of hippocampus
    • 2013, Richard Daniel De Puma, Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (page 107)
      Instead, it seems to be a unique case that ends in the tail of a hippocamp or seahorse, although with one fin now missing. Ultimately, the form might have been inspired by bent-leg vases produced in Greece.
  4. (philately) Any of a series of high-value British stamps issued during the reign of King George V, featuring a depiction of Britannia on a chariot in choppy seas.
  5. (obsolete) A hippopotamus.
    • 1830, Georges Louis Le Clerc (Count de Buffon), The Natural History of Quadrupeds (page 331)
      As most authors mention the hippopotamus under the names of the sea-horse, or the sea-cow, he has sometimes been confounded with the latter, which inhabits only the northern seas.
    • 1857, Journal of the Society of Arts (volume 5, page 72)
      The sea-horse teeth (so called) are the tusks of the hippopotamus.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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