Word.ws English Dictionary

hobby horse

hobby horse noun: the Irish Hobby, an extinct breed of horse.

Noun

hobby horse (plural hobby horses)

  1. (originally) The Irish Hobby, an extinct breed of horse.
  2. A child's toy consisting of a (usually wooden or cloth) horse's head mounted on a stick.
  3. (figuratively) A topic that elicits a prolonged and enthusiastic discussion from an individual.
    • 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.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 250
  4. A puppetlike costume used in some traditional dances and festivals that gives its wearer the appearance of a man on horseback.
  5. (historical) An early bicycle with no pedals or brakes.
    • British users rechristened the baron's invention the hobby horse then the dandy horse, because draisines became very fashionable with Regency gentlemen.2015, Chris Boardman, The Biography of the Modern Bike: The Ultimate History of Bike Design, Hachette, →ISBN, page 10

Verb

hobby horse (third-person singular simple present hobby horses, present participle hobby horsing, simple past and past participle hobby horsed)

  1. (intransitive) To pitch back and forth.

Synonyms of hobby horse

Forms of hobby horse

Noun
pluralhobby horses
alternative formhobbyhorse
alternative formhobby-horse
Verb
third-person singular presenthobby horses
present participlehobby horsing
past participlehobby horsed
pasthobby horsed

Origin of hobby horse

From Middle English hobye hors (“a stock figure in Morris dances, created by means of an exaggeratedly equine costume”), equivalent to hobby (“small horse or pony”) + horse.

Words formed from hobby horse

Questions about hobby horse

What does hobby horse mean?
Hobby horse means the Irish Hobby, an extinct breed of horse.
What part of speech is hobby horse?
Hobby horse can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of hobby horse?
The plural of hobby horse is hobby horses.

Words near hobby horse in the dictionary

  1. hobby desks
  2. hobby farm
  3. hobby farms
  4. hobby fuse
  5. hobby fuses
  6. hobby horse
  7. hobby horsed
  8. hobby horses
  9. hobby horsing
  10. hobby knife
  11. hobby knives

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hobby horse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hobby horse.wav.

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