Word.ws English Dictionary

packhorse

packhorse noun: a horse used as a pack animal.

packhorse: a horse used as a pack animal
Image: Matthew Goodwin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

packhorse (plural packhorses)

  1. A horse used as a pack animal.
    • The two Indians were finished with their own saddling, the camp gear was packed, and already the extra saddle horses and their one packhorse were haltered so they could be led back to the ranch.1981, James Powell, chapter 8, in The Malpais Rider (A Double D Western), Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, →ISBN, page 62
    • Finally they put him on one of De Soto's packhorses, but even on a packhorse his feet hung down to within a few inches of the ground.1997, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms, page 232

Examples of packhorse in a sentence

  • Procter had a handsome half-breed girl with him and two splendid elk heads and meat on his packhorses that he was taking to Fort Lincoln for sale.2009, Victor Grant Smith, edited by Jeanette Prodgers, The Champion Buffalo Hunter: The Frontier Memoirs of Yellowstone Vic Smith, Revised...
  • While I was destroying my parka, the packhorse that Bob had been leading laid down.2010, Bill G. Yung, The Half Fast Hunter, page 41:

Synonyms of packhorse

Forms of packhorse

pluralpackhorses
alternative formpack horse
alternative formpack-horse

Origin of packhorse

From pack + horse, possibly (from an uncertain date) via Middle English palhors (read pakhorse).

Words formed from packhorse

Phrases with packhorse

Questions about packhorse

What does packhorse mean?
Packhorse means a horse used as a pack animal.
How do you use packhorse in a sentence?
Procter had a handsome half-breed girl with him and two splendid elk heads and meat on his packhorses that he was taking to Fort Lincoln for sale.
What part of speech is packhorse?
Packhorse is a noun.
What is the plural of packhorse?
The plural of packhorse is packhorses.

Words near packhorse in the dictionary

  1. packetsful
  2. Packett
  3. Packetts
  4. packfong
  5. Packham
  6. packhorse
  7. packhorse bridge
  8. packhorse bridges
  9. packhorses
  10. packhound
  11. packhounds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: packhorse (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:

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