postillion
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Related to postillion: titanic, postilions
pos·til·ion
also pos·til·lion (pō-stĭl′yən, pŏ-)n.
One who rides the near horse of the leaders to guide the horses drawing a coach.
[French postillon, from Italian postiglione, from posta, mail, from Old Italian, mail station; see post3.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Postillion
One who rides the near horse of a team in order to guide the team. Such riders were found on teams hauling artillery and were sometimes used by the wealthy to guide their coach teams, but were not used in conjunction with farm implements. Sometimes a small boy would ride one horse of a team when doing something like harrowing, but in general, the implements themselves required attention while being pulled so the operator did the double duty of operating the equipment and guiding the team. Also, while a harnessed horse would generally tolerate a rider, workhorses were not necessarily broken for riding, and trying to ride an unharnessed plow horse could be disastrous.
1001 Words and Phrases You Never Knew You Didn’t Know by W.R. Runyan Copyright © 2011 by W.R. Runyan
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Noun | 1. | postillion - someone who rides the near horse of a pair in order to guide the horses pulling a carriage (especially a carriage without a coachman) |
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.