hackney

Meanings

Noun

• An ordinary horse.
• A carriage for hire or a cab.
• A horse used to ride or drive.
• A breed of English horse.
• A hired drudge; a hireling; a prostitute.

Adjective

• Offered for hire.
• Much used; trite; mean.

Verb

• To make uninteresting or trite by frequent use.
• To use as a hackney.
• To carry in a hackney coach.

Origin

• From Middle English hakeney; probably from Hackney (formerly a town, now a borough of London), used for grazing horses before sale, or from Old French haquenee, Latinized in England to hakeneius (though some recent French sources report that the English usage predates the French).