Meanings
plural hobby-horses
- alternativeAlternative spelling of hobby horse.
WHEN a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,—or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows headstrong,——farewell cool reason and fair discretion!
1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman1 more example
The discordant minstrelsy of every kind renewed its din; the boys shrieked and howled, and the men laughed and halloed, and the women giggled and screamed, and the beasts roared, and the dragon wallopp’d and hissed, and the hobby-horse neighed, pranced, and capered, and the rest frisked and frolicked, clashing their hob-nailed shoes against the pavement, till it sparkled with the marks of their energetic caprioles.
1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XIV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, pages 300–301
Cite this entry
hobby-horse. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hobby-horse
“hobby-horse.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hobby-horse. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hobby-horse,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hobby-horse.
Source: hobby-horse on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.