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Glite Dictionary
oxer

oxer

1 9.9
A wide jump made of two poles set side by side that a horse jumps over
  • noun
  • /ˈɑːksər/
  • Jargon
: oxer
  • The challenging course featured a high oxer that caused many competitors to hesitate before attempting it.

Examples

  • To prepare for the show, the horse had to practice jumping over the oxer set in the arena.

  • Yeah, if I hadn't kept on the move after that, I'd be an oxer in a breather bar by now.

    Galaxy of Terror (1981)

  • Saturday afternoon, while she instructed me how to jump Penny Gold over what she called an oxer, her father limped from the house.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • During the competition, the rider skillfully cleared the oxer, impressing the judges with her technique.

Surface Forms

oxer singular
oxers plural

Morphology

oxer = ox (opaque) = ox + er

The word appears to be built on 'ox' + '-er', but the meaning 'a wide jumping obstacle' is specialized and not recoverable in a straightforward way from the component meanings.

Etymology

Oxer is a word you can remember by thinking of ox ('a large farm animal'); a helpful image is a very wide fence made for something as big as an ox. That's why an oxer in show jumping means a wide jump made of two or more rails set side by side.