Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Horseshoe |
HorseshoeNoun1. Game equipment consisting of an open ring of iron used in playing horseshoes. 2. Nailed to underside of horse's hoof. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "horseshoe" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of a horseshoe, indicates advance in business and lucky engagements for women. To see them broken, ill fortune and sickness is portrayed. To find a horseshoe hanging on the fence, denotes that your interests will advance beyond your most sanguine expectations. To pick one up in the road, you will receive profit from a source you know not of. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Fig. 1: Modern Horseshoe
Larger ImageA horseshoe is a U-shaped piece of iron, rubber, plastic, rawhide or a laminate of these, nailed or glued to a horse's hoof--very like a shoe. Kept as a sort of talisman and not on a horse, horseshoes are said to bring luck.
Since the early history of the domestication and use of horses, three factors have contributed to the need for the bottoms of the horse's feet (hooves) to have additional protection over and above their natural hardness.
First, the added weight/stress of a human, cart or wagon traces, or pack loads; second, the fact that in domestication, the customary amount of ground covered by a horse on a daily basis is greatly curtailed; and third, the fact that live food eaten in the wild is nutritionally superior for the purpose of building strong hooves. To these three, the movement of the horse into the wetter climate of northern Europe from the more arid steppes should be added. The wetter climate softened the hooves, making hoof protection necessary, and consequently it was in northern Europe that the first practical horseshoe arose.
In nature, the horse walks and grazes continuously over a wide variety of surfaces. The consequence of this nonstop travel on the horse's feet is to keep them worn to a small, smooth, even and hard state. The continual stimulation and irritation of the sole of the foot keeps it thick and hard, much like a callus. Live grasseses, weeds and shrubs are high in nutrients such as beta carotene. Cultivated feeds lose a high proportion of their carotene within hours of harvesting, and so do not provide this vital ingredient to the horse. The hoof is made of horn, much as the human fingernail, and grows hard, tough and flexible only with optimal nutrition.
In captivity, absent the natural conditioning factors present in the wild, the feet of horses grow overly large, long, fragile and soft. Hence, protection from rocks, pebbles and hard, uneven surfaces is lacking. Cracks in overgrown and overly brittle hoof walls are a constant danger, as is bruising of the soft tissues within the foot because of inadequately thick and hard sole material. Horse owners have sought to remedy this lack with supplemental support and armor, beginning in the earliest days with rawhide boots which could be tied onto the hoof. Since that time, metal shoes have been developed. These are nailed to the rim of the sole with nails which find a purchase in the hoof wall. In modern times, these nails are applied so as to enter the sole of the foot very near the edge, and at an angle which causes them to protrude through the hoof wall, where they are then bent over, cut off and "clinched" to hold in the hoof wall.
Fig. 2: Roman horseshoes Advances in technology and materials have led to shoes which can be glued to the bottom of the foot, and which are composed of tough but yielding materials. This cushions ground impact without adding rigidity or excessive weight to the foot and without requiring nail holes. Typically such applications respond to special needs or medical problems of a given animal, and are not routine. Iron is still favored as the most desired material for horseshoes, because the rigidity which it provides protects the hoof against certain types of injury (such as heel shear) which other materials do not protect against.
When were horseshoes invented? Although this is not the consensus, some historians believe they were an innovation of the Middle Ages. Fig. 2, however, shows two of several horseshoes that were part of a much larger loot from a Roman villa, found in a river near Neupotz, Germany. They are dated to c. 294 CE. (From Künzl, Ernst, Die Alamannenbeute aus dem Rhein bei Neupotz: Plünderungsgut aus dem römischen Gallien. Mainz 1993.)
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Horseshoe."
Synonym: HorseshoeSynonym: shoe (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Curvature | Carve, arc, arch, arcade, vault, bow, crescent, half-moon, lunule, horseshoe, loop, crane neck; parabola, hyperbola; helix, spiral; catenary, festoon; conchoid, cardioid; caustic; tracery; arched ceiling, arched roof; bay window, bow window. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Horseshoe |
| English words defined with "horseshoe": Asian horseshoe crab, Axial line ♦ Bar shoe ♦ calk, calkin, Chelicerata ♦ Electro-magnet, eurypterid ♦ family Limulidae ♦ genus Hippocrepis, genus Hipposideros, genus Rhinonicteris ♦ Hippocrepian, Hippocrepiform, Hippocrepis, Hipposideros, Horsefoot ♦ king crab ♦ leaner, Limulidae ♦ Magnetic battery, Moorish, Moorish architecture ♦ Niagara, Niagara Falls ♦ order Xiphosura ♦ Panton, Poecilopoda, Pritchel ♦ Rhinolophid, Rhinolophine, Rhinonicteris, ringer ♦ Stub iron, stub nail, superclass Chelicerata ♦ true ♦ Xiphosura. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "horseshoe": bevel cut ♦ Horseshoe Crabs, horseshoe parachute pack, horseshoe vortex ♦ Limulus Test ♦ Redgauntlet. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Holy horseshoe! (Batman; writing credit: Bob Kane; Lorenzo Semple Jr.) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Golden Horseshoe Revue (1962) Diamond Horseshoe (1945) The Lucky Horseshoe (1925) Horseshoe Luck (1924) A Horseshoe -- for Luck (1914) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Class B pair of horseshoe crabs. Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | Mating pair of horseshoe crabs. Credit: America's Coastlines. |
 | Processing the samples taken from a gillnet, a horseshoe crab in the background. Credit: NOAA Restoration Center. |  | Caption: Notebook Page Experiment No. 1, Drawing of a Light Bulb with a Horseshoe Filament, Double Page Spread; February 13, 1880; {15.001/125} (jpg). |
 | Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Occupational portrait of a blacksmith, three-quarter length, facing front, holding a horseshoe with pliers in one hand, and a hammer in the other. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Canadian Falls [i.e. Horseshoe Falls], Niagara Falls, N.Y. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Niagara, the Horseshoe Fall. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Community horseshoe court, Litchfield, Minnesota. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Mrs. George F. Baker, Horseshoe Plantation, residence in Tallahassee, Florida. Axis view over round pool. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Horseshoe and Ground" by John Donovan Commentary: "Close up detail of horse hoof prints." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Play | Caption | Play | Caption |
 | Hooves; hoof; horse; clicking; clopping; clop; clip clop; trot; horseshoe. | | Horseshoe; trot; gallop; pavement; paved. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "Horseshoe" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 60.32% of the time. "Horseshoe" is used about 126 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 60.32% | 76 | 38,217 |
| Noun (proper) | 38.89% | 49 | 48,677 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 0.79% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 126 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "horseshoe": asian horseshoe crab ♦ horseshoe arch ♦ horseshoe bat ♦ Horseshoe Bay ♦ Horseshoe Beach ♦ horseshoe bend ♦ horseshoe crab ♦ Horseshoe Crabs ♦ horseshoe dune ♦ horseshoe Falls ♦ horseshoe flame furnace ♦ horseshoe formation ♦ Horseshoe Lake ♦ horseshoe magnet ♦ horseshoe nail ♦ horseshoe parachute pack ♦ horseshoe vetch ♦ horseshoe vortex ♦ horseshoe whipsnake ♦ orange horseshoe bat. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "horseshoe": horseshoe-necked, horseshoe-shaped. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "horseshoe"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | potkua (shoe), patkua (shoe), i mbath patkonj. (various references) | |
Arabic | حدوة. (various references) | |
Blackfoot | iihtáóhsistsiniimsstao'p. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | подковообразен (horseshoe-shaped), подковавам (brief, nail, prepare, shoe), подкова (shoe). (various references) | |
Chinese | 马掌 (horseshoes), 馬蹄鐵 . (various references) | |
Czech | podkova (shoe). (various references) | |
Danish | hesteskoopstilling (horseshoe formation), hesteskonyre (horseshoe kidney), hesteskomagnet (horseshoe-shaped magnet), hesteskokloever (horseshoe vetch), hesteskohvirvel (horseshoe vortex), hesteskoformet redningsvest (horseshoe lifebuoy), hesteskoformet faldskærmspakke (horseshoe parachute pack), hesteskofistel (horseshoe fistula), hestesko-absces (horseshoe abscess), ovn med hesteskoflamme (end-fired furnace, end-port furnace, horseshoe flame furnace), endefyret ovn (end-fired furnace, end-port furnace, horseshoe flame furnace), dolkhaler (horseshoe crab), dolkhale (horseshoe crab), dentalvoks i plader, hesteskoform, staenger (dental wax in plates, horseshoe shapes, sticks), barkan (barcan, barchan, barchan dune, barchane, barkan, barkhan, crescentic dune, horseshoe dune). (various references) | |
Dutch | hoefijzer (horse-shoe), hoefijzer, hoefýzer. (various references) | |
Esperanto | huffero. (various references) | |
Farsi | نعل(نشان خشبختی), نعل اسب (Shoe). (various references) | |
Finnish | hevosenkenkä. (various references) | |
French | fer à cheval (horse shoe). (various references) | |
German | Hufeisen (horse shoe, horseshoes, shoe). (various references) | |
Greek | πέταλο (petal, shoe). (various references) | |
Hebrew | פרסת הסוס, פרסה (foot, hoof, shoe). (various references) | |
Hungarian | patkó (shoe). (various references) | |
Indonesian | belangkas (horseshoe crab). (various references) | |
Italian | forma di un ferro di cavallo, ferro di cavallo (shoe), a forma di un ferro di cavallo. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 馬蹄形 (horseshoe-shaped), 甲蟹 (horseshoe crab), 兜蟹 (horseshoe crab). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ばていけい (horseshoe-shaped), かぶとがに (horseshoe crab). (various references) | |
Korean | 말편자 (horseshoes). (various references) | |
Manx | crou chabbil. (various references) | |
Papago | kawiyu shuhshk. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | orseshoehay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ferradura (horse-shoe). (various references) | |
Romanian | potcoavã (clout, shoe), în potcoavã. (various references) | |
Romany | petaloos. (various references) | |
Russian | подкова (horse-shoe, shoe). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | potkovica, potkovati (shoe). (various references) | |
Spanish | herradura (horse-shoe), pato de caballo. (various references) | |
Swedish | hovjärn, höstsko, hästsko (shoe). (various references) | |
Turkish | nal (shoe), at nalı şeklinde, at nalı. (various references) | |
Turkmen | nal. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | підковоподібний, підкова (shoe), дуга (arc, arch, bend, bow). (various references) | |
Welsh | pedol. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | ferrum, Hippocrepis comosa, Limulus polyphemus, Limulus spp, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Rhinolophus hipposideros, RM:nas fier-chaval grond, RM:nas fier-chaval pitschen. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "horseshoe": horseshoed, horseshoeing, horseshoer, horseshoers, horseshoes. (additional references) | |
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"Horseshoe" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: herreshof, horsehoe. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-h-h-o-o-r-s-s" | |
-2 letters: reshoes. | |
-3 letters: eroses, heroes, horses, reshes, reshoe, rooses, sheers, sheesh, shoers, shores. | |
-4 letters: erose, erses, heres, heros, hoers, horse, hoses, roose, roses, seers, seres, sheer, shoer, shoes, shoos, shore, sores. | |
-5 letters: eros, eses, hehs, here, hero, hers, hoer, hoes, hose, oohs, ores, oses, rees, resh, rhos, roes, rose, seer, sees, sere, sers, shes, shoe. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-h-h-o-o-r-s-s" | |
+1 letter: horseshoed, horseshoer, horseshoes. | |
+2 letters: horseshoers, whorehouses. | |
+3 letters: clotheshorse, horseshoeing, householders, housemothers, motherhouses, phosphoresce, photospheres. | |
+4 letters: chromospheres, clotheshorses, homeschoolers, phosphoresced, phosphoresces. | |
+5 letters: ethnohistories, phosphorescent, schoolteachers, thoroughnesses. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Translations: Ancient 15. Derivations 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
