hoss

noun

ˈhȯs 

ˈhäs

plural hosses

1

informal : horse entry 1 sense 1a(1)

—used especially in representations of southern and southwestern U.S. speech

"I went straight to the camp of the cavalrymen, an' found them just coolin' off an' dressin' down their hosses after what looked to me like a big ride."

—Zane Grey

2

informal : horse entry 1 sense 7

He [J. J. Watt] is still a hoss. Watt played 91.5 percent of the Texans' defensive snaps last season, the highest of any free agent defensive lineman.

—Gregg Rosenthal

Examples of hoss in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This and a sandwich from the warming bin of a gas station is an all-star breakfast for a blue-collar hoss or a city slicker who’s on safari in the hinterlands of America. —Pete Cottell, WIRED, 8 Aug. 2024

The hoss fight ended in a double-countout, but not before Reed delivered a Death Valley Driver through the barricade. —Alfred Konuwa, Forbes, 20 Nov. 2023

All that’s missing, of course, is a big hoss who demands multiple blockers. —oregonlive, 27 Aug. 2021

Also, defensive tackle DeMarvin Leal is a hoss, and looked every bit of his five stars in harassing both LSU quarterbacks throughout the night. —Brent Zwerneman, ExpressNews.com, 29 Nov. 2020

The Samsung Evo Plus NVMe drive is a good choice, the Comet Lake CPU is snappy, and the 73Wh battery is a hoss—particularly in such a slim (15.5mm), lightweight (2.4 lb) laptop. —Jim Salter, Ars Technica, 10 Sep. 2020

Word History

Etymology

regional variant of horse entry 1 in England and North America

Note: Assimilative loss of /r/ before /s/ is attested in a number of words in early Modern English (compare ass entry 2, bust entry 2, cuss entry 1, and the standard pronunciation of Worcester). R. Jordan finds evidence of the change from ca. 1300 (Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik: Lautlehre, 3. Auflage [Heidelberg, 1968], pp. 150-51).

First Known Use

1815, in the meaning defined at sense 1