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horseshoe
(redirected from Horse shoe)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Acronyms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
horseshoe, narrow plate, commonly of iron or steel, shaped to fit a horse's hoof and attached to the hoof by nailing it to the inner edge of the horny wall of the hoof. Horseshoes vary from the light plate worn by race-horses to the heavy shoe with sharp pointed wedges, or calks, worn by horses of logging camps in drawing heavy loads over roads of ice. The earliest extant shoe dates from the 6th cent. B.C. A horseshoe used by the Romans was a leather boot with a metal plate at the bottom. Before the advent of motor vehicles, shoeing horses was an important trade, often combined with general blacksmithing. Often the horseshoer's skill cured lameness, and before veterinary medicine became a profession the horseshoer, or farrier, treated horses for all their diseases. The horseshoe is an emblem and talisman of good luck.
horseshoe
a piece of iron shaped like a U with the ends curving inwards that is nailed to the underside of the hoof of a horse to protect the soft part of the foot from hard surfaces: commonly thought to be a token of good luck

horseshoe
protective talisman placed over doors of churches, stables, etc. [Western Folklore: Leach, 505 ]

horseshoe
hung on buildings as defense against fairies. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 225]


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Byline: GEOFF LAWS THE evening sun was slanting across the fields as we made our way to The Three Horse Shoes pub in Leamside.
Also, if one of your friends is into riding horses, better get him a horse shoe flask.
Nearly as many supported the idea of a priority zone on a narrow section of the road between Barrowstead and the Three Horse Shoes pub, to give traffic from one direction priority over the other.
 
 
 
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