Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to choke a horse

to choke a horse

9.8
A very large amount of food that is more than one person can eat
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : suficiente para alimentar a un caballo
  • He piled spaghetti on his plate—enough to choke a horse.

Examples

  • At Thanksgiving, there’s always food to choke a horse on the table.

  • She won a basket of chocolate bars—enough to choke a horse!

  • Don't choke a horse with too much food!

  • He doesn't want to choke a horse with all that hay.

  • At the family reunion, there was enough food to choke a horse on the buffet table.

  • He made a huge pot of chili—plenty to choke a horse and feed the whole neighborhood.

  • After the feast, we had leftovers that could choke a horse for the entire week.

Synonyms

choke-full
vsto choke a horse
7.0

Filled so tightly that there is no space left

means an amount that is excessive or more than is needed

Antonyms

insufficient
86 3.6

Not enough in amount or quality to meet a need

scarcity
29 4.4

A situation where there is not enough of something people need

How Large

to choke a horse
  • Informal
9.8
huge
∞ 1.0
substantial
394 5.0
large
∞ 1.0
moderate
415 3.3
small
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

choke a horse infinitive
choked a horse past
choked a horse past participle
choking a horse present participle
chokes a horse third person singular

Morphology

choke + a + horse

The meaning 'extremely large/excessive' is directly derivable from the literal image created by 'choke' (to suffocate) + 'horse' (a large animal): it conveys hyperbole — so much that even a horse would choke. This pictorial exaggeration follows a transparent compositional logic that a B1 learner who knows the words can readily infer, and similar animal-based hyperboles occur cross-linguistically.

Etymology

Choke a horse comes from the vivid image of giving a horse so much food that the animal might choke on it. That's why it now means 'a very large amount' or 'more than enough' of something.