Word.ws English Dictionary

horse-wain

horse-wain noun: a wain (i.e. wagon) drawn by horse.

Noun

horse-wain (plural horse-wains)

  1. (rare) A wain (i.e. wagon) drawn by horse.
    • Coal was conveyed into the more remote districts in the rough horse-wains of the time, and carried also in sacks or creels slung on the backs of pack horses.1862, North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, Transactions, volume 10, page 121
    • I've tut up my sasses for horse-wains, An' twaded by sippers for boots: […]1873, Mothers' Journal: A Family Magazine, volume 38, page 550

Examples of horse-wain in a sentence

  • Upon a horse-wain, even as thou sayest, […]1909, Sophocles in English Verse, volume 2, page 43:
  • And thou, my daughter, from the horse-wain step, […]1916, Euripides, Arthur Sanders Way, Euripides: Iphigeneia at Aulis, page 57:

Forms of horse-wain

pluralhorse-wains
alternative formhorse wain

Origin of horse-wain

From Middle English *hors-wain, from Old English horswæġn (“chariot”), equivalent to horse + wain.

Questions about horse-wain

What does horse-wain mean?
Horse-wain means a wain (i.e. wagon) drawn by horse.
How do you use horse-wain in a sentence?
Upon a horse-wain, even as thou sayest, […]
What part of speech is horse-wain?
Horse-wain is a noun.
What is the plural of horse-wain?
The plural of horse-wain is horse-wains.

Words near horse-wain in the dictionary

  1. horse-stinger
  2. horse-stingers
  3. horse-trader
  4. horse-traders
  5. horse-trading
  6. horse-wain
  7. horse-wains
  8. horse-watcher
  9. horse-whispering
  10. horse-yard
  11. horse-yards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: horse-wain (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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