hackney
Appearance
See also: Hackney
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English hakeney, from the placename Hackney (formerly a town; now a borough of London), used for grazing horses before sale, from Old English Hacan īeġ (“Haca's Island”, literally “Hook's Island”). The Old French haquenée (“ambling mare for ladies”), Latinized in England to hakeneius, is originally from the English.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ˈhækni/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ækni
Noun
[edit]hackney (countable and uncountable, plural hackneys)
- (archaic) An ordinary horse.
- A carriage for hire or a cab.
- 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 186:
- "Mamma would die if she knew. The boy," replied Georgiana, "walked with us to Oxford Street, and we took a hackney-coach. Will Mrs. Gooch ever forgive us for getting out of it at her door?"
- A horse used to ride or drive.
- A breed of English horse.
- (archaic) A hired drudge; a hireling; a prostitute.
- (archaic, uncountable) Inferior writing; literary hackwork.
- quoted in 1972, Pat Rogers, Grub Street: Studies in a Subculture (page 384)
- Not that the existence of Grub street is to be doubted: it was, indeed, a grim actuality, and many a garreter realised by experience
How unhappy's the fate
To live by one's pate
And to be forced to write hackney for bread.
- Not that the existence of Grub street is to be doubted: it was, indeed, a grim actuality, and many a garreter realised by experience
- quoted in 1972, Pat Rogers, Grub Street: Studies in a Subculture (page 384)
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]carriage for hire or a cab
|
horse used to ride or drive
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Adjective
[edit]hackney (not comparable)
- Offered for hire.
- hackney coaches
- (figuratively) Much used; trite; mean.
- hackney authors
- a. 1685, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, The Ghost of the old House of Commons to the new one appointed to meet at Oxford.:
- his accumulative and hackney tongue
Translations
[edit]Verb
[edit]hackney (third-person singular simple present hackneys, present participle hackneying, simple past and past participle hackneyed)
- (transitive) To make uninteresting or trite by frequent use.
- (transitive) To use as a hackney.
- (transitive) To carry in a hackney coach.
- 1785, William Cowper, The Task:
- […] To her, who, frugal only that her thrift / May feed excesses she can ill afford, / Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; […]
Translations
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ækni
- Rhymes:English/ækni/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with archaic senses
- English terms with quotations
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- en:Carriages
- en:Horse breeds