hame string

plural hame strings

1. A leather strap or thong used to hold a horse's hame together.

   “I'll take a hame string to you,” I says. “That's what I'll give you. Going through my papers.”

   1929, William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

   3 more examples

   It was not an uncommon thing, when we were going through a corn row, for the point of the coulter to strike a root or stone, when the hame-string would break and the harness and Tom would come flying off over the horse's rump […].

   1895, William Cooper Howells, Recollections of Life in Ohio, 1813-1840, page 82

   My father had told me that he always used leather hame strings so in case he got a team down and it became necessary to loosen the harness to get them up, a pocketknife on a leather hame string was the quickest way.

   1985, Jack Miller, A Settin' Hen Never Gets Fat, page 48

   I found an extra stirrup in the gear room and by using a hame string, mounted it under the stirrup I would put my foot in while riding.

   2015, Ed Butler, Memory Lane Was a Gravel Road for Eight Generations