foal

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fole, inherited from Old English fola,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Proto-Germanic *fulô,^[1] from Proto-Indo-European *pulo- (“young of an animal”), a suffixed form of *pau- (“few, little”).^[6][2] Its cognates are Old Frisian fola, Old Saxon folo, Middle Dutch volen, Dutch veulen, Old High German folo, German Fohlen and Füllen, Old Norse foli and Gothic 𐍆𐌿𐌻𐌰 (fula).^[4][6][7][8] Outside Germanic it is related to Latin pullus (“young animal”), Ancient Greek πῶλος (pôlos, “foal”) and Albanian pelë (“mare”), and to an Armenian word for a kid or goat.^[4][9][7] Ayto and Partridge connect it with puer (“child”).^[8][10] The verb is formed from the noun, as folen.^[11][4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A young horse: in Old English, about 950,^[12] first in the Lindisfarne Gospels at Mark 11:4, for a colt found outside.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

Old English already used the word for the young of an ass, as when a homily pairs a she-ass and her folan.^[14] In Middle English it could also mean a newborn elephant, any young animal, or even a young child, and the OED records it for the young of the elephant or camel from before 1398.^[3][13] From before 1300 until 1513 it could simply mean a horse.^[13][15] Its use for either sex has long been unsettled: the OED says it is chiefly a colt but can be used without regard to sex, the MED wonders whether it was only for males, and Johnson (1755) remarked that "the custom now is to use colt for a young horse, and foal for a young mare; but there was not originally any such distinction".^[13][3][16] Modern dictionaries use it for either a colt or a filly, especially under one year old.^[11][15] The phrase in foal, of a mare, pregnant, is recorded from 1340.^[13] In coal mining a foal was, from the late 18th century, a boy who moved coal from the working face to the tramway.^[15][13] The verb is recorded from about 1386, in Chaucer's Friar's Tale,^[13] or from before 1387 in Trevisa's translation of Higden.^[4] In dialect the plant coltsfoot was called foal-foot.^[17][15]

Timeline

• c. 950 – Old English fola, a young horse.^[12][13]
• before 1300 – a horse (obsolete by 1513).^[13]
• 1340 – in foal, with foal, of a mare, pregnant.^[13]
• c. 1386 – verb, transitive, to bear a foal.^[13][4]
• before 1398 – the young of the elephant or camel.^[13]
• 1521 – verb, intransitive, to give birth to a foal.^[13]
• 1770 – in coal mining, a boy transporting coal.^[13][15]
• 1891 – verb, to get a mare in foal (rare).^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The young of a horse or related animal, especially one under a year old; a colt or filly: The mare and her foal grazed by the fence.^[18][11][15]
2. in foal, with foal: of a mare or the like, pregnant.^[11][15][13]
3. The young of an elephant or camel (rare).^[15][13]
4. A boy employed to move coal in a mine (historical).^[15][13]
5. A horse (obsolete, 1300–1513).^[13][15]

Verb

1. To give birth to a foal: The mare foaled just before dawn.^[18][11][13]

Word family

• foalfoot

Related words

• filly
• pony
• poultry
• pullet
• pullulate
• pool²

Usage notes

Scots had a separate word foal, also written fole and phoal, for a bannock or thick soft cake, recorded in Orkney and Perthshire.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins