| English Dictionary |
POSTILLION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Dictionary entry overview: What does postillion mean?
• POSTILLION (noun)
The noun POSTILLION has 1 sense:
1. someone who rides the near horse of a pair in order to guide the horses pulling a carriage (especially a carriage without a coachman)
Familiarity information: POSTILLION used as a noun is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Someone who rides the near horse of a pair in order to guide the horses pulling a carriage (especially a carriage without a coachman)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Synonyms:
postilion; postillion
Hypernyms ("postillion" is a kind of...):
equestrian; horseback rider; horseman (a man skilled in equitation)
Context examples
On those occasions, when a servant had given me notice, my custom was to go immediately to the door, and, after paying my respects, to take up the coach and two horses very carefully in my hands (for, if there were six horses, the postillion always unharnessed four,) and place them on a table, where I had fixed a movable rim quite round, of five inches high, to prevent accidents.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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