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horsetail

/ˈhɔː(ɹ)s.teɪl/noun

horsetail is a noun meaning “A tail of a horse” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-R-S-E-T-A-I-L and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of horsetail is horsetails.

What does horsetail mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A tail of a horse.

  2. 2

    Any of various simple vascular plants, of the order Equisetales, that have hollow stems and produce spores.

  3. 3

    A Turkish standard denoting rank.

    Commanders were distinguished by the number of horsetails carried before them. The sultan had seven, the grand vizier five, and the pashas three, two, or one.

  4. 4

    A mare's tail, a water plant in genus Hippuris.

  5. 5

    Any waterfall, the descending water of which maintains contact with bedrock most of the time.

  6. 6

    cauda equina, a bundle of nerve fibers.

  7. 7

    rareA ponytail hairstyle.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce horsetail?

  • /ˈhɔː(ɹ)s.teɪl/

Horsetail has 2 syllables (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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Qwertygiy-horsetail.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of horsetail

  • horsetails plural
  • horse tail

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is horsetail?

Horsetail appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 107,757th 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).

Horsetail in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense plant of the order Equisetales:

LanguageWords
Frenchprêle
GermanSchachtelhalm, Kannenkraut
Portuguesecavalinha
Spanishcola de caballo, equisetácea

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 horsetail come from?

From Middle English horsetaile, horstaile, equivalent to horse + tail.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).