English

Alternative forms

• æquison (archaic)

Noun

equison ‎(plural equisons)

1. (archaic) groom, ostler, equerry, jockey
   • 1824–1829: Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume 1^?, page 13^? (1891 republication)

     Once indeed, I confess it, I was very near falling as low: words passed between me and the more favored man of letters, who announces to the world the Works and Days of Newmarket, — the competitors at its games, their horses, their equisons and colours, and the attendant votaries of that goddess who readily leaves Paphos or Amathus for this annual celebration.

   • 1834: The Irish Monthly Magazine of Politics and Literature, volume 3, page 46

     The primitive Esquires were no other than what the Latins called Equisons, who had the care and intendance of the equerries, or stables only.

   • 1893: John Hankins Wallace, Wallace’s Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to Domesticated Animal Nature, volume 19, page 497 (B. Singerly)

     In France escuere is a stable; in England esquire was the ‛Squire of the stable. Equison was an old name for a horse jockey. We have equestrian, equestrienne, equitant, equitation, equitancy, for riders and riding; equine and equinal, pertaining to the horse; equivorous, horse-flesh eating; equinia, glanders. Equipage, as applied now to a carriage, is not derived from equus, as it might at first sight be supposed.

References

• “equison²” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2^nd Ed.; 1989]