headstall

plural headstalls

1. The part of a bridle that fits over a horse's head and supports other elements.First known use 14th c.

   Another, that would seeme to have more wit, / Him by the bright embrodered hed-stall tooke […].

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   Why, Petruchio is coming […] his horse hipp’d […] with a half-cheek’d bit, and a head-stall of sheep’s leather which, being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now repaired with knots […]

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   He turned back, slipped the bit in Dox’s mouth, and laced the big flop ears into the headstall.

   1952, John Steinbeck, East of Eden, Penguin, published 2003, Chapter 15, Part 4, p. 172

   Then the smith Ilmarinen / the everlasting craftsman / out of steel formed a bridle / forged a headstall [translating päitset] of iron […].

   1989, Elias Lönnrot, translated by Keith Bosley, The Kalevala, section XIX

2. obsoleteA phorbeia.First known use 18th–19th c.