Word.ws English Dictionary

kelpie

kelpie noun: a malevolent shapeshifting spirit, most often in the form of a horse, believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland.

Noun

kelpie (plural kelpies)

  1. (Celtic mythology) A malevolent shapeshifting spirit, most often in the form of a horse, believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland.
    • He was a boy in form, and an antediluvian in feature. Some thought he was a mule, between a Jew and an ape; some a wizard, some a kelpie, or a fairy, but most of all, that he was really and truly a Brownie.1828, James Hogg, The Brownie of the Black Haggs
  2. An Australian breed of sheepdog.
    • There was no sound but the endless noise of forest and river, and the sleep-whimper of his kelpie.1979, Thea Astley, Hunting the Wild Pineapple, Nelson, page 28
    • Gulls scatter before the blur of my insane kelpie.1993, Tim Winton, Land's Edge, Picador, published 2014, page 4

kelpie meaning in Bengali, Indonesian and Thai

kelpie in Bengali

spirit
কেলপি kelpi

kelpie in Indonesian

spirit
kelpi

kelpie in Thai

spirit
เคลพี keelá-pii

Forms of kelpie

pluralkelpies
alternative formkelpy

Origin of kelpie

Possibly from Scottish Gaelic cailpeach or colpach, meaning "colt"; recorded earliest in a placename (Kelpie hoall, Kirkcudbrightshire) in 17th century. The dog breed, from 1889, derives from the name shared by the first two breeding bitches (dam and pup) in Victoria, Australia, which in turn derives from the mythological spirit.

Questions about kelpie

What does kelpie mean?
Kelpie means a malevolent shapeshifting spirit, most often in the form of a horse, believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland.
What is kelpie in Bengali?
Kelpie in Bengali is কেলপি (kelpi). See Kelpie meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is kelpie?
Kelpie is a noun.
What is the plural of kelpie?
The plural of kelpie is kelpies.

Words near kelpie in the dictionary

  1. kelped
  2. kelper
  3. kelpers
  4. kelpfish
  5. kelpfishes
  6. kelpie
  7. kelpies
  8. Kelpin
  9. kelping
  10. kelps
  11. kelpware

Source and license

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

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