Word.ws English Dictionary

war horse

war horse is the alternative form of warhorse.

Meaning of warhorse

Noun

warhorse (plural warhorses)

  1. (historical) Any horse used in horse-cavalry, but especially one bearing an armoured knight.
    • Just within the inner edge of the circle stood a soldier, in the military attire of a strange nation; and without it was his warhorse, in the center of a collection of mounted domestics, seemingly in readiness to undertake some distant journey.1826, [James Fenimore Cooper], The Last of the Mohicans; a Narrative of 1757. […], volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea— […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    battlehorse
  2. (figuratively, informal) An experienced person who has been through many battles, situations or contests; someone who has given long service.
    • Near-synonym: workhorse
  3. A regularly revived theatrical or musical work, as with Hamlet or a Beethoven symphony, or as excerpts thereto. May imply that the work in question has become hackneyed.
    • a Wagner warhorse

Forms of war horse

pluralwar horses

Questions about war horse

What is war horse the alternative form of?
War horse is the alternative form of warhorse.

Words near war horse in the dictionary

  1. war hedge
  2. war hedges
  3. war hero
  4. war horn
  5. war horns
  6. war horse
  7. war hound
  8. war hounds
  9. War in Europe
  10. War in the Pacific
  11. war is hell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: war horse (page history and authors); warhorse (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: “war horse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/war_horse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.