Meaning of Warhorse | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Any horse used in horse-cavalry, but especially one bearing an armoured knight.
   historical
2. An experienced person who has been through many battles, situations or contests; someone who has given long service.
   figuratively, informal
3. A regularly revived theatrical or musical work, as with Hamlet or a Beethoven symphony, or as excerpts thereto. May imply that the work in question has become hackneyed.

Equivalents

Examples

“Just within the inner edge of the circle stood a soldier, in the military attire of a strange nation; and without it was his warhorse, in the center of a collection of mounted domestics, seemingly in readiness to undertake⟳ some distant journey.”

“As he spoke, the knight-errant, who had remounted his war-horse, galloped forward⟳ to the royal stand⟳, with a silken kerchief bound round his wounded arm.”

“Near-synonym: workhorse”

“Among other accidents of that year was a Democratic president. Judge⟳ Atwood was a warhorse of Democracy.”

“Certainly this was a bold proposal to an old warhorse like⟳ Ecuyer, and, like⟳ a true English bulldog, he voiced a reply⟳ which made the Indians wince.”

““I don't know⟳. I never notice⟳ much. Oh, they do kid me about not being in the army—especially the old warhorses, the old men that aren't going themselves. And this Bogart boy. And Mr. Hicks's son—he's a horrible brat. But probably he's licensed to say⟳ what he thinks about his father's hired man!””

“Srinath: India's warhorse [title]”

“a Wagner warhorse”

“I remember⟳ taking the old warhorse, “Una Voce Poco Fa,” from Il Barbiere (Rossini) to three of the greatest living singing masters in Italy.”

“Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo[…] presented a typical program⟳ of Russian warhorses of the 19th and early 20th centuries[…]”

“A Mendelssohn Warhorse Gets the Perlman Treatment [title]”

“[…] the ROH mounts a new production of an Italian repertory warhorse that is fully on the level of the one it replaces […”

CEFR level