gallop

/ˈɡæləp/

gallop noun: the fastest gait of a horse, a two-beat stride during which all four legs are off the ground simultaneously.

Image: Eadweard Muybridge, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

gallop (plural gallops)

The fastest gait of a horse, a two-beat stride during which all four legs are off the ground simultaneously.
An act or instance of going or running rapidly.
- Charlie and Marnie fought at brunch and then confessed their undying love for each other; Ray got promoted by his coffee-shop boss and then dumped by his croissant-purse-toting girlfriend; and Hannah, with a deadline looming, her OCD blaring, and all her friends elsewhere, desperately FaceTimed...2013 March 18, The "Girls" Roundtable, “The 'Girls' Season-Finale Gut Check: And Hannah Lived Happily Ever After?”, in The Atlantic
An abnormal rhythm of the heart, made up of three or four sounds, like a horse's gallop.
A rhythm consisting of an 8th note followed by two 16th notes, resembling a horse's gallop.
- A gallop rhythm:
  \drums{\repeat unfold4{wbl8wbh16 16

Verb

gallop (third-person singular simple present gallops, present participle galloping, simple past and past participle galloped)

(intransitive, etc) To run at a gallop.
- The horse galloped past the finishing line.
(intransitive) To ride at a galloping pace.
- Gallop lively down the western hill.a. 1631, John Donne, Epithalamion Made at Lincoln's Inn
(transitive) To cause to gallop.
- to gallop a horse
(ambitransitive) To make electrical or other utility lines sway and/or move up and down violently, usually due to a combination of high winds and ice accrual on the lines.
(intransitive) To run very fast.
- In the 11th minute the German won possession in midfield and teed up the galloping Kieran Gibbs, whose angled shot was pushed by Kelvin Davies straight into the retreating Jos Hooiveld.2012 September 15, Amy Lawrence, “Arsenal's Gervinho enjoys the joy of six against lowly Southampton”, in the Guardian
(figuratively, intransitive) To go rapidly or carelessly, as in making a hasty examination.
- Such superficial ideas he may collect in galloping over it.a. 1705, John Locke, “Of the Conduct of the Understanding”, in Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke: […], London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], published 1706, →OCLC
- Soon after breakfast Miss Matilda, having galloped and blundered through a few unprofitable lessons, and vengeably thumped the piano for an hour, in a terrible humour with both me and it, because her mama would not give her a holiday, […]1847, Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey
(intransitive, especially pneumonia) To progress rapidly through the body.

Proper noun capitalized: Gallop

Gallop (plural Gallops)

A surname.

gallop meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

gallop in Tamil

முதல் பார்வைப்படி, நாலு காற்பாய்ச்சல், பாய்ச்சல், விரைந்து விழுங்குதல், சீரற்ற இதய ஒலி, பாய்ச் சலோட்டம்

gallop in Urdu

دپٹ, گھڑ دوڑ, ڈپٹنا, گھوڑے کا پوئا, سرپٹ دوڑنا, تیز چلنا

gallop in Telugu

గాలోప్

More languagesFewer languages

gallop in Malayalam: കുതിപ്പ്, നാലുകാലും പറിച്ചോട്ടം, പാച്ചിൽ, കുതിരയോട്ടം
gallop in Kannada: ಕುದುರೆಗಳ ನಾಗಾಲೋಟ, ನೆಗೆದೋಡು, ಟೆಪ್ಪರಿಸು, ವೇಗವಾಗಿ ಹೋಗು
gallop in Sanskrit: पलायित palāyita
gallop in Assamese: ঢাপলি dhapoli
gallop in Nepali: ग्यालोप, गालोप
gallop in Persian: چهارنعل čahâr-na'l, چهارنعل رفتن čahâr-na'l raftan, تاختن tâxtan
gallop in Thai: ห้อ hôr
gallop in Vietnamese: phi

Examples of gallop in a sentence

The horse broke into a gallop as they neared the barn.
On a gapsite between two crumbling tenements a bonfire was blazing and lethal-looking kids galloped around it.
She took every fence at a gallop, she flung her heart over, Devil take the hindmost.

All 31 example sentences with gallop

Forms of gallop

Noun
plural	gallops
Verb
third-person singular present	gallops
present participle	galloping
past participle	galloped
past	galloped
Proper noun
plural	Gallops

Plural of gallop: gallops

Origin of gallop

From Middle English galopen (“to gallop”), from Old French galoper (compare modern French galoper), from Frankish *wala hlaupan (“to run well”), from *wala (“well”) + *hlaupan (“to run”), from Proto-Germanic *hlaupaną (“to run, leap, spring”), from Proto-Indo-European *klaup-, *klaub- (“to spring, stumble”). Possibly also derived from a deverbal of Frankish *walhlaup (“battle run”) from *wal (“battlefield”) from a Proto-Germanic word meaning "dead, victim, slain" from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“death in battle, killed in battle”) + *hlaup (“course, track”) from *hlaupan (“to run”). More at well, leap, valkyrie. See also the doublet wallop, coming from the same source through an Old Northern French variant.

English surname, variant of Gallup.

Words formed from gallop

Questions about gallop

What does gallop mean?: Gallop means the fastest gait of a horse, a two-beat stride during which all four legs are off the ground simultaneously.
What is gallop in Tamil?: Gallop in Tamil is முதல் பார்வைப்படி, நாலு காற்பாய்ச்சல், பாய்ச்சல். See Gallop meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is gallop?: Gallop can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gallop?: Gallop is pronounced /ˈɡæləp/.
What is the plural of gallop?: The plural of gallop is gallops.

Words near gallop in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gallop.wav.

Cite this entry: “gallop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gallop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.