river horse

English

Alternative forms

• river-horse, riverhorse

Etymology

Calque of Ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος (hippopótamos), equivalent to river +‎ horse. Compare Middle English water hors (“hippopotamus”).

Noun

river horse (plural river horses)

1. (dated) Hippopotamus.
   • 1808, Thomas Shaw, Travels Or Observations:

     The river-horse feeds upon the herbage of the Nile, and the behemoth is said to eat grass like an ox.

   • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “The Winding-Up”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 303:

     Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Loomings”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 4:

     It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.

   • 1909, George Meredith, The Palace of Aklis:

     Here, before a feast that would prick the dead with appetite, were shapes of beasts with heads of men, asses, elephants, bulls, horses, swine, foxes, riverhorses, dromedaries; […]

Translations

hippopotamus — see hippopotamus