Word Confusion: Hoarse versus Horse

Plural for the noun and third person present verb: horses
Past tense or past participle: horsed
Gerund or present participle: horsing

Having a vocal tone characterized by weakness of intensity and excessive breathiness

• Husky

Having a raucous voice

Making a harsh, low sound

Hauled or powered by a horse

Large or coarse of its kind

Mounted on horses

Noun:
A solid-hoofed plant-eating domesticated mammal with a flowing mane and tail, used for riding, racing, and to carry and pull loads

• An adult male horse
• A stallion or gelding
• A wild mammal of the horse family
• [Treat as singular or plural] Cavalry

Something on which a person rides, sits, or exercises, as if astride the back of such an animal

[Carpentry] A frame or structure on which something is mounted or supported, especially a sawhorse

• Trestle
• A frame, block, etc., with legs, on which something is mounted or supported
• [Nautical] A horizontal bar, rail, or rope in the rigging of a sailing ship for supporting something
• Traveler: rope, spar, or rod itself

[Shipbuilding] A mold of a curved frame, especially one used when the complexity of the curves requires laying out at full size

• [Gymnastics] Short for pommel horse or vaulting horse

[Informal] A unit of horsepower

[Informal] Heroin

[Mining] A block of rock interrupting a vein and containing no minerals

[Geology] A large block of displaced rock that is caught along a fault

[Basketball] A game in which players take turns attempting to duplicate successful basketball shots, a letter of the word “horse” is awarded for each missed attempt, and the first player to receive all five letters loses

[Horse training, Riding, & Manège] An order to mount horses

[Canada, US; colloquial] Painful involuntary spasms or cramps in the leg muscles

Verb, intransitive:
To mount or go on a horse

[Of a mare] To be in heat or estrus

[Vulgar] To have coitus

Verb, transitive:
To provide with a horse or horses

To set on horseback

To set or carry on a person’s back or on one’s own back

[Carpentry] To cut notches for steps into (a carriage beam)

To move with great physical effort or force

[Slang] To make (a person) the target of boisterous jokes

To perform boisterously, as a part or a scene in a play

[Nautical] To caulk (a vessel) with a hammer

To work or haze (a sailor) cruelly or unfairly.

[Archaic] To place (someone) on a person’s back, in order to be flogged

He shouted himself hoarse.

The hoarse voice of the auctioneer struggled to rise up above the crowd.

Speaking at an abnormal or uncomfortable pitch can lead to hoarse voice.

His aged voice was hoarse, slow and soothing, a fatherly sound that Maurice found foreign.

She sounded a bit hoarse.

You’ll make yourself hoarse if you keep shouting like that!

They’re using a horse barge for part of the trip!

We’ve got some extra horse blankets in here.

Geez, these things are the size of horse pills!

The Old Guard forms up on the North side of the enclosure in Horse Guards.

Noun:
I suspect all girls go through a horse phase.

The Equus caballus, from the family Equidae, is descended from the wild Przewalski’s horse.

The horse family also includes the asses and zebras.

The troop included forty horse and sixty foot.

There’s to be a regiment of horse in the parade.

He still likes to bet on the horses.

Jeff refinished my old rocking horse.

I love my adjustable sawhorses.

Just tie your horse up to the horse-rail.

A horse scaffold, primarily used during boat construction, is handy for light or medium duty work.

R. Mikaelyan was first among the Soviet gymnasts who started with the long horse.

It was huge, a 63-horse 701-cc engine.

He remembers his first taste of marijuana, his first snort of horse.

A mining horse is a class of pony commonly used underground in mines from the mid-18th until the mid-20th century.

You’re backing the wrong horse, boss.

Ow, I’ve got a Charley horse!

For a three-foot wide tread, I like to use four horses at 12″ on center.

Verb, intransitive:
We’re riding this afternoon.

I was horsing Jamie’s mum last night, and he walked in.

Hey guys, let’s play some H-O-R-S-E until supper.

To horse!

Verb, transitive:
They’re horsing the coach.

It’s a horsed vehicle.

Stop horsing around and get to work.

For firms horsing their own vehicles, the cost of the yard would be a joint cost and cannot be divided between horses and vehicles.

He horsed her on his back and picked his way down the mountain.

Jake horsed the beam.

It took three men to horse the trunk up the stairs.

The brutality and harassment go far beyond mere horseplay and teasing.

A caulking hammer’ll help horse that wad in.

“Things had changed little since the days of the pyramids, with building materials being horsed into place by muscle power.” – Henry Allen

Sweating gunners horsed their cannons into action.

Horse ‘im for punishment.