spavined

English

WOTD – 14 January 2025

Etymology

From Late Middle English spaueyned, from spavein, spaveine (“swelling on horse’s leg causing lameness; disease causing lameness in horses”) + -ed (suffix forming adjectives; and the past tense and past participle forms of weak verbs). By surface analysis, spavin +‎ -ed (suffix forming possessional adjectives from nouns, denoting having the objects represented by the nouns; and forming past tenses of regular verbs).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈspævɪnd/
• Hyphenation: spa‧vined

Adjective

spavined (comparative more spavined, superlative most spavined)

1. (farriery, veterinary medicine) Of a horse: having spavin (“a disease of horses caused by a bony swelling which develops in a leg due to inflammation”).

   Synonym: (archaic) spavindy

   Antonym: unspavined

   Coordinate term: foundered

   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter VI, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 115:

     [H]e […] made a present to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined poney, in order to enable him to pursue his journey.

   • 1833, Elia [pseudonym; Charles Lamb], “[Popular Fallacies.] XI. That We Must Not Look a Gift-Horse in the Mouth, […].”, in The Last Essays of Elia. […], London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 250:

     A horse-giver, no more than a horse-seller, has a right to palm his spavined article upon us for good ware. An equivalent is expected in either case; and, with my own good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks, than out of my money.

   • 1867, Anthony Trollope, “The Bishop’s Angel”, in The Last Chronicle of Barset. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 106:

     […] Mr. Thumble, […] had ridden over to Hogglestock on a poor spavined brute belonging to the bishop's stable, and which had once been the bishop's cob.

   • 1868, Mrs. H. Lloyd Evans, “Across the Atlas”, in Last Winter in Algeria, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 100:

     As for the wonderful feats of horsemanship one hears of or sees among the Arabs, they are due to sharp spurs like razors, and to bits strong enough to break an animal's jaw. […] The favourite feat at their fantasias or fêtes of suddenly pulling up their horses short while at a hand-gallop, ruins their legs, and there is in consequence scarcely a horse to be seen whose hind-legs are not spavined.

   • 1876, Samuel S[ullivan] Cox, “Legislative Anecdote—Continued”, in Why We Laugh, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 281:

     The Whig party was supposed to be broken in 1842. It was likened to the man who wished to sell his horse. A by-stander asked if the horse was not spavined? "Spavined! I don't know what that is; but if the horse is any better for being spavined, then he is spavined!"

   • 2010, Stephen R[eeder] Donaldson, Against All Things Ending (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant; 3), New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN, page 54:

     Into the vale from the north rode a stranger. He was mounted on a mangy, shovel-headed horse so spavined that it should have been unable to support his improbable bulk.

2. (by extension) Of a person: lame due to a leg disease.

   Synonyms: (archaic) halt, halting, limping

   Antonym: unspavined

   Coordinate term: crippled

3. (figurative) Of a person or a thing: old, worn-out; also, obsolete.

   I’m a spavined old warrior, and I don’t have much time left in this world, but I still have a few tricks to teach these whippersnappers.

   • 1647, Theodore de la Guard [pseudonym; Nathaniel Ward], The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. […], London: […] J[ohn] D[ever] & R[obert] I[bbitson] for Stephen Bowtell, […], →OCLC, page 37:

     If God hide his path, Satan is at hand to turn Convoy: if any have a minde to ride poſte, hee vvill helpe them vvith a freſh ſpavin'd Opinion at every Stage.

   • 1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: […] John Hunt, […], published 1823, →OCLC, stanzas XC–XCI, page 33:

     Now the Bard, glad to get an audience, […] / stuck fast with his first hexameter, / Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. // But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd / Into recitative, in great dismay / Both cherubim and seraphim were heard / To murmur loudly through their long array; […]

   • 1936 April, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “The Letter of the Law”, in Lord Emsworth and Others, London: Herbert Jenkins […], published 19 March 1937, →OCLC, page 108:

     "Fo—o—o—re!" The cry, in certain of its essentials not unlike the wail of a soul in torment, rolled out over the valley, and the young man on the seventh tee, from whose lips it had proceeded, observing that the little troupe of spavined octogenarians doddering along the fairway paid no attention whatever, gave his driver a twitch as if he was about to substitute action for words.

Derived terms

• unspavined

Related terms

• spavin
• spavindy (archaic)

Translations

of a horse: having spavin

• Finnish: pattijalkainen, pattipolvinen
• Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
• Scots: spavied
• Swedish: spattig

of a person: lame due to a leg disease — see lame

of a person or a thing: old, worn-out — see old,‎ worn-out

of a person or thing: obsolete — see obsolete

Verb

spavined

1. simple past and past participle of spavin

Further reading

• bone spavin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia