colt

From Middle English colt, from Old English colt, from Proto-Germanic *kultaz (“plump; stump; thick shape, bulb”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelt- (“something round, pregnant belly, child in the womb”), from *gel- (“to ball up, amass”). Cognate with Faroese koltur (“colt, foal”) Norwegian kult (“treestump”), Swedish kult (“young boar, boy, lad”). Related to child.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kəʊlt/, [kɔʊlt], (also) /kɒlt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /koʊlt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊlt

colt (plural colts)

1. A young male horse.

   Coordinate term: filly

2. A young crane (bird).
3. (figuratively) A youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene ii], line 38:

     Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but / talk of his horse, and he makes it a great appropriation to / his own good parts that he can shoe him himself.

   1. (cricket, slang) A professional cricketer during his first season.
      • 1882, The Downside Review (volume 1, page 287)

        The bowling is more promising in the colts than in the eleven.

4. (nautical) A short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.
5. (biblical) A young camel or donkey.

colt (third-person singular simple present colts, present participle colting, simple past and past participle colted)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To horse; to get with young.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iv], line 133:

     Never talk on't: / She hath been colted by him.

2. (obsolete, transitive) To befool.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene ii], line 36:

     What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

3. To frisk or frolic like a colt; to act licentiously or wantonly.
   • 1596 (date written; published 1633)​, Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], OCLC 606546850; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, OCLC 22906028:

     They shook off their bridles and began to colt.

• (to act licentiously or wantonly): See Thesaurus:harlotize

• stallion, mare, foal, filly, horseling

• colt in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• colt on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• TLOC, clot

colt m (plural colts)

1. Colt (gun)

• “colt”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• colte, cowlt

From Old English colt, from Proto-Germanic *kultaz.

• IPA^(key): /kɔlt/, /kɔːlt/

colt (plural coltes)

1. A juvenile equid or camel; a colt.
2. (derogatory, rare) A human child.

• English: colt
• Scots: colt, cout, cowt
• Yola: caule, caul, cawl, kawle

• “colt, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-12.