palfrey
noun
- type of horse
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈpɔːl.fɹi/
name
Etymology: Metonymic occupational surname for a man responsible for the maintenance and provision of saddle-horses, from Middle English palfrey.
- A surname from Middle English.
- A suburb of Walsall, Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England (OS grid ref SP0097).
noun
Etymology: From Middle English palfrey, from Anglo-Norman palefrei (“steed”), from Old French palefroi, palefreid, from Late Latin paraverēdus (“post horse, spare horse”), from Ancient Greek παρά (pará) + Latin verēdus (“post horse”), from Gaulish *werēdos (“horse”) (compare Welsh gorwydd (“horse”)), from Proto-Celtic *uɸoreidos (“horse”). Doublet of prad. Compare Dutch paard and German Pferd.
- A small horse with a smooth, ambling gait, popular in the Middle Ages with nobles and women for riding (contrasted with a warhorse).
“Five warriors seiz'd me yestermorn, / Me, even me, a maid forlorn: / They choked my cries with force and fright, / And tied me on a palfrey white. / The palfrey was as fleet as wind, / And they rode furiously behind.”
“The eye of father and sister alike forgot every other object while watching the evolutions of the young and graceful boy, who realised the descriptions of romance as, his golden curls dancing on the wind, his cheek flushed with exercise, and his large blue eyes dilated and flashing with triumph, he ruled the snow-white palfrey by a wave of the hand and an imperceptible pressure of the knee. It seemed as if the docile creature intuitively divined his will.”