spavined

English

Etymology

From spavin +‎ -ed.

Adjective

spavined (comparative more spavined, superlative most spavined)

1. Of a horse: having spavin.
   • 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.

   • 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. [...] Their favourite feat at their fantasias or fêtes of suddenly pulling up their horses short while at 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 Donaldson, Against All Things Ending: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     He was mounted on a mangy, shovel-headed horse so spavined that it should have been unable to support his improbable bulk.

2. (figurative) Of a person: obsolete, old, worn-out.

   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.

   • 1822, Lord Byron, The Vision of Judgement, stanzas 90-91:

     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 spavined Dactyls could be spurred / Into recitative, in great dismay / Both Cherubim & Seraphim were heard / To murmur loudly through their long array […]

   • 1937, P. G. Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth and Others, Overlook, Woodstock, published 2002, page 95:

     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.

See also

• crippled
• lame

Verb

spavined

1. simple past and past participle of spavin