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Webster 1913 Edition
Pastern
Pas′tern
,Noun.
[Of.
pasturon
, F. pâturon
, fr. OF. pasture
a tether, for beasts while pasturing; prop., a pasturing. See Pasture
.] 1.
The part of the foot of the horse, and allied animals, between the fetlock and the coffin joint. See Illust. of
Horse
. ☞ The upper bone, or phalanx, of the foot is called the
great pastern bone
; the second, the small pastern bone
; and the third, in the hoof, the coffin bone
. Pastern joint
, the joint in the hoof of the horse, and allied animals, between the great and small pastern bones.
2.
A shackle for horses while pasturing.
Knight.
3.
A patten.
[Obs.]
Dryden.
Webster 1828 Edition
Pastern
PAS'TERN
,Noun.
1.
The human leg; in contempt.Definition 2024
pastern
pastern
English
Noun
pastern (plural pasterns)
- The area on a horse's leg between the fetlock joint and the hoof.
- 1918, Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Oxford 1998), page 158:
- It was quite impossible to ride over the deeply-ploughed field; the earth bore only where there was still a little ice, in the thawed furrows the horse's legs sank in above its pasterns.
- 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin 2013, p. 227:
- Below me, somewhere in the horse-lines, stood Cockbird, picketed to a peg in the ground by a rope which was already giving him a sore pastern.
- 1918, Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Oxford 1998), page 158:
- (obsolete) A shackle for horses while pasturing.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)
- (obsolete) A patten.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)
Translations
area on a horse's leg