white horse
1
6.7
- noun
:
caballo de mar
- Surfing enthusiasts eagerly awaited the crashing white horses that marked the breaking waves.
- six white horses
Examples
-
About a car length from her stood a white horse.
Fiction book (1994) -
She was in a house in the country, and a white horse came up and looked in through the window at her.
Fiction book (2000) -
He sits on a magnificent white horse.
Fiction book (1994) -
The sea is a slatier kind of gray, only relieved by white horses racing to shore.
Academic text (2001) -
Revolutionary sensibilities particularly bristled when the head of state was transported in an elegant carriage pulled by six white horses with uniformed postillions and footmen.
Blog text (22) -
As the storm intensified, we could see the white horse frothing at the edge of the waves.
-
The beach was lively, with white horses appearing and disappearing as the tide rolled in.
Synonyms
2
5.5
A wave on the sea or lake with a white top
Surface Forms
Morphology
white + horse
The meaning 'a wind‑blown wave crest' is a metaphorical extension based on the whiteness and rearing motion likened to horses, so the link depends on imagery rather than regular compositional rules. A B1 learner who knows 'white' and 'horse' might sense a figurative image but would unlikely predict this specific nautical sense without prior exposure, making it only partially transparent.
Etymology
White horse comes from a sea image: when wind blows the tops of waves, the white foam looks like a running horse, and the word white points to the foam. That's why people used white horse to mean 'a wave whose crest has been blown by the wind'.