HORSE SENSE

PRONUNCIATION: (HORS sens)

MEANING: noun: Common sense.

ETYMOLOGY: From horse, from Old English hors + sense, from Latin sensus (faculty of feeling). Earliest documented use: 1832.

NOTES: Why horses in this idiom, as opposed to, say, foxes? Perhaps it’s the association of horses with the country and the sound practical judgment shown by an unsophisticated country person. Or maybe it’s an allusion to a horse’s sense in staying out of trouble. Also, in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 satire Gulliver’s Travels, Houyhnhnms is a race of horses endowed with reason, contrasted with Yahoos (boorish humans). Compare the term horsefeathers (nonsense).
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HOUSE SENSE - sanity among the Representatives

HOSE SENSE - good taste in stockings

HORSE SEANSE - it's the spirits of Topper and Trigger and Silver and Scout returned...