colt

See also: Colt and colț

English

A mare and colt.

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, boy, lad”). Related to child.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kəʊlt/, [kɔʊlt], (also) /kɒlt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /koʊlt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊlt

Noun

colt (plural colts)

1. A young male horse.

   Coordinate term: filly

   • 1857, Herman Melville, chapter XXII, in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade:

     The petty vices of boys are like the innocent kicks of colts, as yet imperfectly broken.

2. A young crane (bird).
3. (figuratively) A youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], line 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.

   1. (cricket, slang) A professional cricketer during his first season.
      • 1882, The Downside Review, volume 1, page 287:

        The bowling is more promising in the colts than in the eleven.

4. (nautical, historical) A short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.
5. (obsolete, slang) A weapon formed by slinging a small shot to the end of a somewhat stiff piece of rope.
6. (biblical) A young camel or donkey.

Derived terms

• catch colt
• colt evil
• colt's tooth
• old-field colt
• summer colt
• woods colt

 

Translations

young male horse

• Albanian: mëz (sq)
• Armenian: մտրուկ (hy) (mtruk), քուռակ (hy) (kʻuṙak)
• Aromanian: mãndzu m
• Asturian: potru (ast) m
• Bulgarian: жребче́ (bg) m (žrebčé)
• Catalan: poltre (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 駒／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 (nl) n
• Esperanto: ĉevalido
• Faroese: koltur n
• Finnish: varsa (fi), orivarsa
• French: poulain (fr) m
• Galician: poldro (gl)
• German: Hengstfohlen n, männliches Fohlen n, männliches Füllen n, Hengstfüllen n
• Greek:

  Ancient: πῶλος m (pôlos)

• Ido: kavalyunulo (io)
• Irish: bromach m
• Italian: puledro (it) m
• Japanese: 雄の子馬 (osu no kouma)
• Latgalian: kumeļs m
• Latin: equuleus m
• Latvian: kumeļš m
• Lithuanian: kumeliukas m
• Macedonian: ждребе n (ždrebe)
• Malay: kuda jantan muda
• Maltese: mohor m, felu m
• Megleno-Romanian: mǫndz m
• Mongolian: даага (mn) (daaga)
• Navajo: łéʼéyázhí
• North Frisian: Plāg (Sylt)
• Occitan: polin (oc)
• Plautdietsch: Falm n
• Polish: źrebak (pl) m, ogierek m
• Portuguese: potro (pt) m, poldro (pt) m
• Punjabi: ਵਛੇਰਾ (pa) m (vacherā)
• Romanian: mânz (ro) m
• Russian: жеребёнок (ru) m (žerebjónok) (colt of filly), жере́бчик (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 (sh) n, ždrijebe (sh) n (colt of filly)

• Slovene: žrebe (sl) n
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: žrěbc m

• Spanish: potranco m, potro (es) m
• Taos: kòwʼȕʼúna
• Turkish: tay (tr)
• Ukrainian: лоша́ n (lošá)
• Volapük: jevodül (vo) m or f, hijevodül (vo) m, jijevodül (vo) f
• Welsh: ebol (cy) m
• Wolof: mol mi
• Zazaki: estor (diq)

novice

• Bulgarian: новак (bg) m (novak)
• French: jeunot (fr) m
• Portuguese: novato (pt) m, noviço (pt) m
• Romanian: novice (ro) m or f, începător (ro) m

rope

• Russian: линёк (ru) m (linjók)

References

• (weapon): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

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.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], line 133:

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

2. (obsolete, transitive) To befool.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], line 36:

     What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

3. (intransitive) To frisk or frolic like a colt; to act licentiously or wantonly.
   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     They shook off their bridles and began to colt.

4. (obsolete, slang, transitive) To 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.
   • 1849, The Lancet, page 53:

     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!

   • 1923, Notes and Queries, page 153:

     […] his first appearance the jury duly "colted" him.

Synonyms

• (to act licentiously or wantonly): See Thesaurus:harlotize

See also

• stallion, mare, foal, filly, horseling

References

• “colt”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• (to haze): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

Further reading

• colt on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• TLOC, clot

French

Noun

colt m (plural colts)

1. Colt (gun)

Further reading

• “colt”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• colte, collt, kowlt

Etymology

From Old English colt, from Proto-Germanic *kultaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔlt/, /kɔu̯lt/

Noun

colt (plural coltes)

1. A juvenile equid or camel; a colt.
2. (derogatory, rare) A human child.

Descendants

• English: colt
• Scots: colt, cout, cowt
• Yola: caule, caul, cawl, kawle

References

• “colt, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-12.