canter

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a controlled three-beat gait of a horse, faster than a trot but slower than a gallop

   The horse settled into a smooth canter along the track.

2. 2
   verb

   of a horse or rider, to move at a canter

   They cantered across the meadow before turning toward home.

3. 3
   verb

   to make or ride a horse at a canter

   She cantered the pony around the outside of the arena.

Simplified etymology

Canter arose in the early 18th century as a shortening of Canterbury pace or Canterbury gallop, a mid-17th-century name for the gentle pace of mounted pilgrims travelling to the shrine of St Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. The expression at a canter later came to mean “with great ease,” from horse racing, where a horse far ahead could canter rather than gallop through the final stretch.

Traditionally shortened from Canterbury pace or Canterbury gallop, the easy gait associated with medieval pilgrims riding to Canterbury. The noun for the gait later produced both the intransitive and transitive verb senses.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary