Word.ws English Dictionary

horse-comb

UK/ˈhɔːsˌkəʊm/US/ˈhɔɹsˌkoʊm/

horse-comb noun: a comb used by horse groomers for combing the mane and tail of horses.

Noun

horse-comb (plural horse-combs)

  1. A comb used by horse groomers for combing the mane and tail of horses.
  2. A curry comb (comb used for brushing a horse's coat)
    • A Horſe-comb. Strigilis.1675, Christopher Wase, Dictionarium Minus, A Compendious Dictionary English-Latin and Latin-English […] , 2nd edition, page 599
    • In the reign of Henry V, the service seems to have been changed to the annual delivery of a “horse comb, value four-pence.”1837, “Driving to Cover:-Portrait of J. S. W. S. Erle Drax, Esq. Charborough Park, Dorsetshire.”, in The New Sporting Magazine, volume 13, number 79, page 262

Forms of horse-comb

pluralhorse-combs
alternative formhorsecomb
alternative formhorse comb

Origin of horse-comb

From Middle English horscomb, horsecombe, horskame, horskambe, from Old English horscamb (“horse-comb, curry-comb”), equivalent to horse + comb.

Questions about horse-comb

What does horse-comb mean?
Horse-comb means a comb used by horse groomers for combing the mane and tail of horses.
What part of speech is horse-comb?
Horse-comb is a noun.
How do you pronounce horse-comb?
Horse-comb is pronounced /ˈhɔːsˌkəʊm/ (UK).
What is the plural of horse-comb?
The plural of horse-comb is horse-combs.

Words near horse-comb in the dictionary

  1. horse-carts
  2. horse-chestnut
  3. horse-chestnuts
  4. horse-collar
  5. horse-collars
  6. horse-comb
  7. horse-combs
  8. horse-drawn
  9. horse-drench
  10. horse-drenches
  11. horse-faced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: horse-comb (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.

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