horse
/hoɹs/noun, verb
horse is spelled H-O-R-S-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 58 times per million words in written English, the 1,793rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, horse means “A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of horse is horses.
How many letters and syllables are in horse?
| Letters | 5: H-O-R-S-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 58 times per million words; the 1,793rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| 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 horse?
Horse appears 58 times per million words in written English, the 1,793rd 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 horse?
- UK /hɔːs/
- British /hoːs/
- US /hoɹs/
Horse 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-uk-a_horse.ogg, En-us-horse.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with horse
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: hoarse (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: hoarse.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with horse?
5 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as horse from its last stressed vowel (/oɹs/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: shore, shero, hoser.
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 horse
- horses plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- harse
- hawss
- hoss
- horsing participle, present
- horsed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does horse mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.
A cowboy's greatest friend is his horse.
- 2
Any member of the species Equus ferus, including the Przewalski's horse and the extinct Equus ferus ferus.
- 3
Any current or extinct animal of the family Equidae, including zebras and asses.
These bone features, distinctive in the zebra, are actually present in all horses.
- 4
A male horse, as opposed to a mare.
- 5
Cavalry soldiers (sometimes capitalized when referring to an official category).
We should place two units of horse and one of foot on this side of the field.
- 6
informalThe chess piece representing a knight, depicted as a horse.
Now just remind me how the horse moves again?
- 7
A xiangqi piece that moves and captures one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally.
- 8
slangA large and sturdy person.
Every linebacker they have is a real horse.
- 9
slangHeroin (drug).
verb
- 1
Synonym of horse around.
- 2
To play mischievous pranks on.
- 3
To provide with a horse; supply horses for.
- 4
obsoleteTo get on horseback.
- 5
To sit astride of; to bestride.
- 6
To copulate with (a mare).
- 7
To take or carry on the back.
- 8
To place (someone) on the back of another person, or on a wooden horse, chair, etc., to be flogged or punished.
noun
- 1
A poker variant consisting of five different poker variants, with the rules changing from one variant to the next after every hand.
- 2
Alternative form of horse (“a variant of basketball”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Horse in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | cheval, étalon, jument, poulain, pouliche , équidé |
| German | Pferd, Ross, Roß, Gaul, Hengst, Pferdehengst |
| Portuguese | cavalo, égua , equino , cavalaria |
| Spanish | caballo, arpa, caballuno, caballar , equino, equina |
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 horse come from?
From Middle English hors, horse, ors, from Old English hors (“horse”), from Proto-West Germanic *hors, *hross, from Proto-Germanic *hrussą (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sós (“vehicle”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (“to run”
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).