Library / English Dictionary

NEIGH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The characteristic sounds made by a horse

Synonyms:

neigh; nicker; whicker; whinny

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("neigh" is a kind of...):

cry (the characteristic utterance of an animal)

Derivation:

neigh (make a characteristic sound, of a horse)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make a characteristic sound, of a horse

Synonyms:

neigh; nicker; whicker; whinny

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "neigh" is one way to...):

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

neigh (the characteristic sounds made by a horse)

Credits

 Context examples: 

While he and I were thus employed, another horse came up; who applying himself to the first in a very formal manner, they gently struck each other’s right hoof before, neighing several times by turns, and varying the sound, which seemed to be almost articulate.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The horse neighed three or four times, and I waited to hear some answers in a human voice, but I heard no other returns than in the same dialect, only one or two a little shriller than his.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They were under great perplexity about my shoes and stockings, which they felt very often, neighing to each other, and using various gestures, not unlike those of a philosopher, when he would attempt to solve some new and difficult phenomenon.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The united praise of the whole race would be of less consequence to me, than the neighing of those two degenerate Houyhnhnms I keep in my stable; because from these, degenerate as they are, I still improve in some virtues without any mixture of vice.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But the first, who was a dapple gray, observing me to steal off, neighed after me in so expressive a tone, that I fancied myself to understand what he meant; whereupon I turned back, and came near to him to expect his farther commands: but concealing my fear as much as I could, for I began to be in some pain how this adventure might terminate; and the reader will easily believe I did not much like my present situation.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)