gallop

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English galopen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French galoper,^[5][6][2][7] recorded in Anglo-Norman from about 1136.^[8] The noun is borrowed from Old French galop, apparently from the verb,^[6][9][10] found in Old French from the 11th century, at first mostly in the plural with verbs of motion.^[6] The French verb has counterparts in Old Occitan galaupar, Spanish galopar, Portuguese galopar and Italian galoppare.^[6] The OED says no satisfactory origin had been found, though the Provençal form suggests a compound of Proto-Germanic *hlaupaną (“to leap, run”) with some prefixed word.^[6][1] Its initial must once have been w: the unrecorded Old Northern French *waloper, *walop is inferred from Middle High German walop, walopieren and Middle English walop, walopen, the source of wallop.^[6][3][11] Etymonline, Partridge and Dictionary.com derive it from Frankish *wala hlaupan (“to run well”),^[5][12][13] related to well and leap;^[5][1] the American Heritage Dictionary gives that or *walhlaup, a swift run on the battlefield beside a cavalry horse.^[7][13] Skeat had explained it as "Celtic running", from Old Saxon words for a Celt and to run.^[4] Etymonline notes that Dutch galopperen, German galoppiren and Swedish galoppera are borrowed from French.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To go at a gallop: before 1425, in the Lincoln's Inn manuscript of Kyng Alisaunder ("þe deor galopiþ by wodis side").^[2][3] The OED and the Middle English Dictionary note that the older Bodleian manuscript reads galpeþ instead,^[6][2] so the OED's first record of the verb is from about 1515, in Lord Berners's translation of Huon of Bordeaux, of a horse going at a gallop.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The older Middle English walop, wallop was used of galloping in Scotland from 1375 and to about 1480,^[3][6] and was superseded in the 16th century by gallop, a new borrowing from French.^[6][3][11] The noun, the fastest pace of a horse, is first recorded in Berners's translation of Froissart (1523);^[6][3] full gallop followed in 1569, and a ride at that pace in 1596.^[6] Figurative use of the verb, to move or progress fast, began in 1582,^[6] and Weekley dates galloping consumption, a quickly progressing disease, to the 17th century.^[11][10] Johnson (1755) described the gallop as the motion of a horse at full speed, lifting its forelegs and then its hind legs almost at once.^[14] Later the verb gained to gallop away, to talk fast (1711, in Swift), and to gallop through, to read hastily (1782),^[6] and the noun a track for galloping horses (1848, in Trollope).^[6] In American slang a gallop was also a dance (1941).^[15]

Timeline

• before 1425 – verb, to go at a gallop (the reading is doubtful).^[2][3]
• c. 1515 – verb, of a horse, to go at a gallop; transitive, to make a horse gallop.^[6]
• 1523 – noun, the fastest pace of a horse; verb, of a rider, to ride at full speed.^[6][3]
• 1569 – full gallop, the greatest speed of a horse.^[6]
• 1582 – verb, figuratively, to move or progress quickly.^[6]
• 1596 – a ride at a gallop.^[6]
• 1711 – to gallop away, to talk fast.^[6]
• 1782 – to gallop through, to read or recite hastily.^[6]
• 1848 – a track for galloping or exercising horses.^[6]
• 1882 – to carry rapidly by galloping horses.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fastest gait of a horse or other four-footed animal, in which all four feet are off the ground at once in each stride.^[16][9][6]
2. A ride or run at this pace: They went for a gallop along the beach.^[16][9][6]
3. A stretch of ground or a track used for galloping or exercising horses.^[9][6]
4. A rapid pace: The project moved forward at a gallop.^[9][6]

Verb

1. Of a horse or similar animal, to run at a gallop.^[16][9][6]
2. To ride a horse at a gallop: The messenger galloped to the next village.^[16][9][6]
3. To move, progress or act very quickly; to hurry: galloping inflation.^[16][9][10]
4. To go through something hastily, as in reading or talking, often with through.^[16][6]
5. To make a horse gallop.^[9][6]
6. To carry someone or something by galloping horses.^[9][6]

Word family

• galloper
• outgallop

Related words

• wallop
• galop
• leap
• lope
• well

Usage notes

A separate verb gallop, to boil fast, recorded from before 1627 in Middleton, is probably imitative, like the boiling sense of wallop.^[6][11] It survived in dialect: in Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and East Anglia "the pot gallops" meant it was boiling hard.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ 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)