Word.ws English Dictionary

horses for courses

Syllables: hors·es for cours·esUK/ˈhɔː(ɹ)sɪz fə ˈkɔːsɪz/US/ˈhɔɹsəz fɚ ˈkɔɹsəz/

horses for courses phrase: different people are suited for different jobs or situations; what is fitting in one case may not be fitting in another.

horses for courses: different people are suited for different jobs or situations; what is fitting in one case may not...
Image: Ian Robertson from East Saltoun, Scotland, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Phrase

horses for courses

  1. (UK, idiomatic) Different people are suited for different jobs or situations; what is fitting in one case may not be fitting in another.
    • Not long ago, a group of Thames-side penthouses went up for sale with giveaway Ducati motorbikes worth £13,000 apiece. […] "In many cases giveaways are horses for courses, the inducements matching the styles of properties being marketed," he [David Hollingworth of London and Country Mortgages] adds.2003 May 14, Christopher Browne, “Bonanza time for home buyers”, in The Independent, London, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2017
    • Far be it from me to judge what anyone else finds attractive – each to their own, horses for courses, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and any number of similar well-meaning platitudes – but no one's going to start arguing forcefully that Mick [Hucknall]'s ever been 'classically handsome'.2014 November 10, Helen Coffey, “What does Mick Hucknall have that other men lack?”, in The Daily Telegraph, London, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2015

Examples of horses for courses in a sentence

  • It's horses for courses," he [Alki Manias of NetValue] said.2002 March 13, Sarah Left, “Email beats snail mail for residential use”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2016:
  • And that limit is marked out by its genre or style. […] It's an age-old rule, this insistence on "horses for courses", but in the modern era many musicians have become impatient with it.2013 January 12, Ivan Hewett, “John Zorn: Master of all styles and none”, in The Daily Telegraph, London, archived from the original on 15...

Forms of horses for courses

alternative formcourses for horses

Origin of horses for courses

An allusion to the fact that a racehorse performs best on a racecourse to which it is specifically suited.

Questions about horses for courses

What does horses for courses mean?
Horses for courses means different people are suited for different jobs or situations; what is fitting in one case may not be fitting in another.
How do you use horses for courses in a sentence?
It's horses for courses," he [Alki Manias of NetValue] said.
What part of speech is horses for courses?
Horses for courses is a phrase.
How do you pronounce horses for courses?
Horses for courses is pronounced /ˈhɔː(ɹ)sɪz fə ˈkɔːsɪz/ (UK).

Words near horses for courses in the dictionary

  1. horses about
  2. horses and buggies
  3. horses and carriages
  4. horses and carts
  5. horses around
  6. horses for courses
  7. horses' asses
  8. horses' doovers
  9. horses' mouths
  10. horses, not zebras
  11. horsesat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: horses for courses (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: en-au-horses for courses.ogg.

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