Meaning & use
horse box
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Meanings
nouncountableBritish
A covered vehicle or trailer designed for carrying one or more horses safely from place to place.
Grammar: Takes a/the or becomes plural: a horse box, two horse boxes.
Patterns
- load a horse into a horse box
- tow a horse box
She loaded her pony into the horse box before dawn.
The family drove the horse box to the show in a neighboring county.
A big horse box blocked the narrow country lane.
nouncountableBritish
A single stall or compartment in a stable or vehicle in which a horse is kept.
Grammar: Often refers to one stall within a larger building.
Patterns
- a horse box in the stable
Each horse box in the stable had fresh straw.
The foal stayed in the end horse box for the night.
They cleaned out every horse box before the vet arrived.
Word forms
| plural | horse boxes |
|---|
Common combinations
- tow a horse box
- He needs a strong car to tow a horse box.
- park the horse box
- Please park the horse box in the field by the gate.
- load a horse into the horse box
- It took two people to load the nervous mare into the horse box.
- drive a horse box
- She learned to drive a horse box at nineteen.
- a converted horse box
- They turned an old horse box into a tiny holiday home.
Synonyms and how they differ
- horse trailer
- Horse trailer is the usual American term and refers to a vehicle pulled behind another, while a horse box in Britain can also be a self-driven lorry.
- horse van
- Horse van is an older British term that stresses the vehicle is enclosed like a van.
- stall
- A stall is a compartment inside a stable and is never a vehicle, so it matches only the second sense.
Word family
Commonly confused: horse box or loose box?
horse box vs loose box
A loose box is a roomy stable stall where a horse can move freely, and it is not a vehicle.
Practice
We hitched the ___ to the truck and drove the ponies to the show.
Choose one answer.
Only a horse box can be hitched to a truck and carry animals. A saddle, bucket or bale cannot carry ponies.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “horse box”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.