Horse
Featured in: Year 1: Animals, including humans
Horse
Mammal
A large, strong animal often used for riding and working on farms.
💡 Fun Facts
- Horses can sleep both lying down and standing up.
- They have the largest eyes of any land mammal.
- A baby horse is called a foal.
Name Story
Equus caballus
means “the horse — named with the everyday word for a workhorse”
What does its name mean?
- Equus — horse (the grand, poetic word)Latin
- caballus — nag, workhorse (the ordinary, everyday word)Latin
Latin had two words for horse — the noble "equus" and the humble "caballus", meaning a plodding workhorse — and it was the ordinary one that won, growing into the French cheval and the Spanish caballo, and even into our words cavalry and chivalry.