palfrey

See also: Palfrey

English

Etymology

From Middle English palfrey, from Anglo-Norman palefrei (“steed”), from Old French palefroi, from Late Latin paraverēdus (“post horse, spare horse”), from Ancient Greek παρά (pará)+ Latin verēdus (“post horse”), from Gaulish *werēdos (“horse”) (compare Welsh gorwydd (“horse”)), from Proto-Celtic *uɸorēdos (“horse”). Doublet of prad. Compare Dutch paard and German Pferd.

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɔːl.fɹi/
Audio (southern England) (file)

Noun

palfrey (plural palfreys)

(historical) A small horse with a smooth, ambling gait, popular in the Middle Ages with nobles and women for riding (contrasted with a warhorse).
- 1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Christabel. Part I.”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: […] John Murray, […], by William Bulmer and Co. […], published 1816, OCLC 1380031, page 8:
  Five warriors seiz'd me yestermorn, / Me, even me, a maid forlorn: / They choked my cries with force and fright, / And tied me on a palfrey white. / The palfrey was as fleet as wind, / And they rode furiously behind.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, pages 154–155:
  The eye of father and sister alike forgot every other object while watching the evolutions of the young and graceful boy, who realised the descriptions of romance as, his golden curls dancing on the wind, his cheek flushed with exercise, and his large blue eyes dilated and flashing with triumph, he ruled the snow-white palfrey by a wave of the hand and an imperceptible pressure of the knee. It seemed as if the docile creature intuitively divined his will.

Translations

small horse

Catalan: palafrè (ca) m
Esperanto: paradĉevalo
Finnish: palfrey-hevonen
French: palefroi (fr) m
Galician: palafrén m
German: Zelter (de) m
Italian: palafreno (it) m
Japanese: ポールフリ (pōrufuri)
Portuguese: palafrém m
Romanian: buiestraș (ro) m
Spanish: palafrén m

Anagrams

pelfray

Middle English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman palefrei (“steed”), from Old French palefroi, from Late Latin paraverēdus (“post horse, spare horse”), from Ancient Greek παρά (pará) + Latin verēdus (“post horse”), from Gaulish *werēdos (“horse”), from Proto-Celtic *uɸorēdos (“horse”).

Noun

palfrey (plural palfreys)

palfrey

Descendants

English: palfrey