ETYM AS. hors; akin to OS. hros, Dutch and Old High Germ. ros, German ross, Icel. hross; and perh. to Latin currere to run, Eng. course, current Cf. Walrus.
(Homonym: hoarse).
1. A padded gymnastic apparatus on legs.
2. Solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped domesticated since prehistoric times; SYN. Equus caballus.
Hoofed, odd-toed, grazing mammal Equus caballus of the family Equidae, which also includes zebras and asses. The many breeds of domestic horse of Euro-Asian origin range in color from white to gray, brown, and black. The yellow-brown Mongolian wild horse or Przewalski’s horse E. przewalskii, named for its Polish “discoverer” about 1880, is the only surviving species of wild horse.
It has become extinct in the wild because of hunting and competition with domestic animals for food; about 800 survive in captivity, and there are plans to reintroduce them to Mongolia.
Breeds include the Arab, small and agile; Thoroughbred, derived from the Arab via English mares, used in horse racing for its speed (the present stock is descended from three Arab horses introduced to Britain in the 18th century); quarter horse, used by cowboys for herding; Lippizaner, a pure white horse, named for its place of origin in Slovenia; shire, the largest draft horse in the world at 17 hands (1 hand = 10.2 cm/4 in), descended from the medieval war horses that carried knights in armor. Ponies combine the qualities of various types of horses with a smaller build (under 14.2 hands, or 1.47 m/58 in). The smallest is the hardy Shetland, about 10.5 hands, or 70 cm/27 in high.
The mule, a hardy pack animal, is the usually sterile offspring of a female horse and a male ass; the hinny is a similarly sterile offspring of a male horse and a female ass, but less useful as a beast of burden.
A horse is sexually mature at two to three years and can live 20 to 30 years in reasonable conditions; a few are known to have lived past 40. The gestation period, from conception to birth of a foal, is 11 months. + prikaži više

ETYM Old Eng. stede, AS. stęda a stud-horse, war horse, from stôd a stud of breeding steeds.
(Literary) Spirited horse for state or war.

(1800-1862) English explorer who discovered the north magnetic pole 1831. He also went to the Antarctic 1839; Ross Island, Ross Sea, and Ross Dependency are named for him.

(1857-1932) British physician and bacteriologist, born in India. From 1881 to 1899 he served in the Indian Medical Service, and during 1895–98 identified mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles as being responsible for the spread of malaria. Nobel Prize 1902.
Ross studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. On retiring from the Indian Medical Service in 1899, he returned to Britain, eventually becoming professor of tropical medicine at Liverpool. During World War I he was consultant on malaria to the War Office, and when the Ross Institute of Tropical Diseases was opened 1926, he became its first director.
While on leave in England in 1894, Ross became acquainted with Scottish physician Patrick Manson, who suggested that malaria was spread by a mosquito. Returning to India, Ross collected mosquitoes, identifying the various species and dissecting their internal organs. In 1897 he discovered in an Anopheles mosquito a cyst containing the parasites that had been found in the blood of malarial patients.
Later, using caged birds with bird malaria, Ross was able to study the entire life history of the parasite inside a mosquito, and the mode of transmission to the victim. + prikaži više