Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having no horse; propelled without the aid of horses.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective archaic, except in a historical context. Being without a horse; specif., not requiring a horse; -- said of certain vehicles in which horse power has been replaced by electricity, steam, etc.. It was used primarily in the term “
horseless carriage”, to refer to automobiles. By the 1930's when automobiles had become more common than horses for transportation, the term had lost its currency.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not having a
horse .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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We sent people to the moon, we ride in horseless machines and fly in the sky.
Advisor: Was it cruel to let poor kids in India play with my iPod? Boing Boing 2009
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These wondrous machines were referred to as horseless carriages.
Marc Hartzman: A Touch of Knowledge: The Horsey Horseless Marc Hartzman 2011
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ldquo;People were calling the horseless carriage a folly.
Rocky Kistner: The Electric Car and the New Normal Rocky Kistner 2012
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When automobiles first showed up, they were called horseless carriages.
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This is, by the way, a perfect example of what McLuhan called the horseless carriage syndrome: interpreting a novelty in terms of its predecessor.
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Alice Ramsey who in 1909, did the unconventional, which is somewhat an understatement, and drive across the United States in what then was called a horseless carriage.
Planet Debian 2009
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What rolled off the assembly line was a kind of horseless carriage that roared like a lawn mower and polluted the air worse than a whole city block full of big Western cars.
What I Learned as a Car Czar Ion Mihai Pacepa 2009
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i; day in a horseless was the way to freedom, he was running to doubt that he wanted any part of it.
A different flesh Turtledove, Harry 1988
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Just lately, said Lucy, hes been working on a new kind of horseless carriage.
Chapter 6 1918
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"Just lately," said Lucy, "he's been working on a new kind of horseless carriage."
The Magnificent Ambersons; illustrated by Arthur William Brown 1918
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