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Glite Dictionary
hobby horse

hobby horse

1 7.6
A subject someone is too excited about and often mentions
  • noun
  • /ˈhɑbi ˌhɔrs/
  • Archaic
translation icon : tema recurrente
  • I know I'm on a hobby horse these days about the bitterness of our politics.

So there's the overall commitment and then there are the mechanisms where one person doesn't get to bang his drum or or or ride his hobby horse.

Examples

  • I have been riding this hobby horse on the archives list for some time.

    Blog text (18)

  • Talking about climate change is my favorite hobby horse; I could discuss it for hours.

  • There is some other very interesting material: a hobby horse of mine.

    Academic text (2011)

  • That's been my hobby horse for a while now.

    Blog text (29)

  • So yes, my hobby horse du jour is humanity, our role in "nature," and our freedom to be in control of our own lives.

    Blog text (2)

  • But for you to lash out with gratuitous insults, just because we haven't hopped on your hobby-horse du jour, is not polite behavior.

    Blog text (2)

  • In our meetings, he always brings up his hobby horse about renewable energy.

  • Her hobby horse seems to be the importance of mental health awareness in schools.

Synonyms

hobbyhorse
vshobby horse
  • Archaic
1 8.1

A topic a person talks about all the time

is the same idea but written as two separate words

Antonyms

indifference
71 4.6

Lack of interest or concern about something

disinterest
5 5.8

Not feeling interested in something, like a talk or task

How Obsessive

obsession
262 5.1
hobby horse
  • Archaic
1 7.6
enthusiasm
288 2.2
hobby
297 1.0
to interest
206 1.0

Surface Forms

hobby horse singular
hobby horses plural

Morphology

hobby + horse

Although 'hobby' signals a pastime, adding 'horse' does not transparently yield the sense 'a subject someone talks about obsessively'—the animal 'horse' contributes no predictable semantic clue. 'Hobby horse' is an idiomatic/metaphorical coinage (historically from a toy/figurative use) so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the meaning.

Etymology

Hobby horse comes from an old children's toy: a stick with a wooden horse head that kids would pretend to ride for fun. Because children 'rode' the toy again and again, people used the name for a favourite pastime or idea someone keeps returning to, so today hobby horse means 'a subject someone is always talking about'.