Meanings
plural horse-combs · alternative horsecomb · alternative horse comb
- A curry comb (comb used for brushing a horse's coat)
A Horſe-comb. Strigilis.
1675, Christopher Wase, Dictionarium Minus, A Compendious Dictionary English-Latin and Latin-English […] , 2nd edition, page 5992 more examples
In the reign of Henry V, the service seems to have been changed to the annual delivery of a “horse comb, value four-pence.”
1837, “Driving to Cover:-Portrait of J. S. W. S. Erle Drax, Esq. Charborough Park, Dorsetshire.”, in The New Sporting Magazine, volume 13, number 79, page 262After six weeks in Belgium he arrived in England with only two possessions: an aluminium horse comb and a handkerchief.
2003, Pamela Howe Taylor, The Germans We Trusted: Stories of Friendship Resulting from the Second World War, →ISBN, page 34
Origin
- Old Englishhorscamb“horse-comb, curry-comb”
- Middle Englishhorscomb
- Englishhorse-comb
From Middle English horscomb, horsecombe, horskame, horskambe, from Old English horscamb (“horse-comb, curry-comb”), equivalent to horse + comb.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
horse-comb. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horse-comb
“horse-comb.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horse-comb. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “horse-comb,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horse-comb.
Source: horse-comb on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.