HORSESHOE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does horseshoe mean? 

• HORSESHOE (noun)
  The noun HORSESHOE has 2 senses:

1. game equipment consisting of an open ring of iron used in playing horseshoes

2. U-shaped plate nailed to underside of horse's hoof

  Familiarity information: HORSESHOE used as a noun is rare.

• HORSESHOE (verb)
  The verb HORSESHOE has 1 sense:

1. equip (a horse) with a horseshoe or horseshoes

  Familiarity information: HORSESHOE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HORSESHOE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Game equipment consisting of an open ring of iron used in playing horseshoes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

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

game equipment (equipment or apparatus used in playing a game)

Sense 2

Meaning:

U-shaped plate nailed to underside of horse's hoof

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

horseshoe; shoe

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

plate; scale; shell (a metal sheathing of uniform thickness (such as the shield attached to an artillery piece to protect the gunners))

• HORSESHOE (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Equip (a horse) with a horseshoe or horseshoes

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

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

equip; fit; fit out; outfit (provide with (something) usually for a specific purpose)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

A leucine-rich protein structural motif that forms an alpha/beta horseshoe tertiary structure.

(Leucine-Rich Repeat, NCI Thesaurus)

In this bag I have one of the boots which Straker wore, one of Fitzroy Simpson’s shoes, and a cast horseshoe of Silver Blaze.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The valley ran from the horseshoe, land-locked bay to the tops of the dizzy, cloud-capped peaks and contained perhaps ten thousand acres.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

After some search, it was found in the box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and a half, in guineas and half-guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in perfectly clean Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England stock; an old horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But I should like to take a little walk over the moor before it grows dark, that I may know my ground to-morrow, and I think that I shall put this horseshoe into my pocket for luck.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)