hobby horse
"hobby-horse" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hobby horse” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The Irish Hobby, an extinct breed of horse.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hobby-horse · hobby horse · English
hobby horse · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hobby horse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “hobby horse” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hobby horse is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for hobby horse in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is hobby horse, spelled H-O-B-B-Y- -H-O-R-S-E.
Definition
- 1The Irish Hobby, an extinct breed of horse.
- 2A child's toy consisting of a (usually wooden or cloth) horse's head mounted on a stick.
- 3A topic that elicits a prolonged and enthusiastic discussion from an individual.
- 4A puppetlike costume used in some traditional dances and festivals that gives its wearer the appearance of a man on horseback.
- 5An early bicycle with no pedals or brakes.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hobby horse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Don't ask him about global warming: it's his favourite hobby horse, you'll never get away.
The squire was now on his hobby-horse, as we say; he had placed the old worn fur cap by his side on the sofa, leaving his bald head and grey hairs exposed.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.