colt
/kəʊlt/noun, verb
colt is spelled C-O-L-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.7 times per million words in written English, the 13,496th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, colt means “A young male horse” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of colt is colts.
How many letters and syllables are in colt?
| Letters | 4: C-O-L-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.7 times per million words; the 13,496th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is colt?
Colt appears 3.7 times per million words in written English, the 13,496th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce colt?
- UK /kəʊlt/
- UK [kɔʊlt]
- UK /kɒlt/
Colt has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-colt.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-colt.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with colt
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with colt?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as colt (/əʊlt/).
Spelled with the same letters in another order: clot.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of colt
- colts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- colting participle, present
- colted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does colt mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A young male horse.
- 2
A young crane (bird).
- 3
A youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
- 4
slangA professional cricketer during his first season.
- 5
obsoleteslangA person who sits as a juryman for the first time.
- 6
A short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.
- 7
obsoleteslangA weapon formed by slinging a small shot to the end of a somewhat stiff piece of rope.
- 8
A young camel or donkey.
verb
- 1
obsoleteTo horse; to get with young.
- 2
obsoleteTo befool.
- 3
To frisk or frolic like a colt; to act licentiously or wantonly.
- 4
obsoleteslangTo 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.
noun
- 1
A revolver (gun) (from Colt's Manufacturing Company), associated especially but not exclusively with the American Wild West.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Colt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | poulain , jeunot |
| German | Hengstfohlen, männliches Fohlen, männliches Füllen, Hengstfüllen |
| Portuguese | potro, poldro , novato, noviço |
| Spanish | potranco, potro |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does colt come from?
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, piglet, boy, lad”) / Swedish kulting (“piglet”). Related to child.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).