Etymology 1
From Middle English trotten, from Old French trotter, troter (“to go, trot”), from Medieval Latin *trottō, *trotō (“to go”), from Frankish *trottōn (“to go, run”), from Proto-Germanic *trudōną, *trudaną, *tradjaną (“to go, step, tread”), from Proto-Indo-European *dreh₂- (“to run, escape”). Cognate with Old High German trottōn (“to run”), Modern German trotten (“to trot, plod”), Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌿𐌳𐌰𐌽 (trudan, “to tread”), Old Norse troða (“to walk, tread”), Old English tredan (“to step, tread”). Doublet of tread.
Noun
trot (plural trots)
- (archaic, derogatory) An ugly old woman, a hag.[1] [From 1362.]
- (chiefly of horses) A gait of a four-legged animal between walk and canter, a diagonal gait (in which diagonally opposite pairs of legs move together).
2000, Margaret H. Bonham, Introduction to: Dog Agility, page 14:Dogs have a variety of gaits. Most dogs have the walk, trot, pace, and gallop.
2008, Kenneth W. Hinchcliff, Andris J. Kaneps, Raymond J. Geor, Equine Exercise Physiology: The Science of Exercise in the Athletic Horse, Elsevier, page 154:The toelt is comfortable for the rider because the amplitude of the dorsoventral displacement is lower than at the trot. […] The slow trot is a two-beat symmetric diagonal gait. Among the normal variations of the trot of saddle horses, the speed of the gait increases from collected to extended trot.
2009, Gordon Wright, George H. Morris, Learning To Ride, Hunt, And Show, page 65:To assume the correct position for the posting trot, first walk, with the body inclined forward in a posting position. Then put the horse into a slow or sitting trot at six miles an hour. Do not post.
- A gait of a person or animal faster than a walk but slower than a run.
- A brisk journey or progression.
We often take the car and have a trot down to the beach.
In this lesson we'll have a quick trot through Chapter 3 before moving on to Chapter 4.
- A toddler.[1] [From 1854.]
- 1855, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes, 1869, The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Volume V: The Newcomes, Volume I, page 123,
- […] but Ethel romped with the little children — the rosy little trots — and took them on her knees, and told them a thousand stories.
- (obsolete) A young animal.[1] [From 1895.]
- (dance) A moderately rapid dance.
- (Australia, obsolete) A succession of heads thrown in a game of two-up.
- (Australia, New Zealand, with "good" or "bad") A run of luck or fortune.
He′s had a good trot, but his luck will end soon.
1994, Noel Virtue, Sandspit Crossing, page 34:It was to be a hugely special occasion, for apart from the picture shows at the Majestic, there was usually nothing at all going on in Sandspit to make anyone think they were on a good trot living there.
2004, John Mosig, Ric Fallu, Australian Fish Farmer: A Practical Guide to Aquaculture, 2nd edition, page 21:Should he or she be having a bad trot, the exchange rate will be higher than normal.
- (dated, slang, among students) Synonym of horse (illegitimate study aid)
- (informal, as 'the trots') Diarrhoea.
He's got a bad case of the trots and has to keep running off to the toilet.
Synonyms
- (gait of an animal between walk and canter):
- (ugly old woman): See Thesaurus:old woman
- (gait of a person faster than a walk): jog
Translations
gait of an animal between walk and canter
a gait of a person faster than a walk
Translations to be checked
Verb
trot (third-person singular simple present trots, present participle trotting, simple past and past participle trotted)
- (intransitive) To move along briskly; specifically, to move at a pace between a walk and a run.
- I didn't want to miss my bus, so I trotted the last few hundred yards to the stop.
- The dog trotted along obediently by his master's side.
- 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xiv:
- I would trot ten or twelve miles each day, go into a cheap restaurant and eat my fill of bread, but would never be satisfied. During these wanderings I once hit on a vegetarian restaurant in Farringdon Street. The sight of it filled me with the same joy that a child feels on getting a thing after its own heart.
- c. 1920s-1930s, Charlotte Druitt Cole, Runaway Jane:
- They sent little Jane to the garden to play,
- But she opened the gate, and then trotted away
- Under the hawthorns and down the green lane,
- Bad little, mad little, runaway Jane!
- (intransitive, of a horse) To move at a gait between a walk and a canter.
- (transitive) To cause to move, as a horse or other animal, in the pace called a trot; to cause to run without galloping or cantering.
- (UK, slang, archaic, transitive) To bid against (a person) at an auction, so as to raise the price of the goods.
1927, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, The Parliamentary Debates (Official Report), page 2221:A particular friend of mine complained that I had "trotted" him at a sale, but he did not see what was happening on the part of the other bidder.
Translations
(of a horse) move at a gait between a walk and a canter
transitive: to cause to move in the pace called a trot
Etymology 2
Short for foxtrot, whose rhythms influenced the genre.
Etymology 3
Noun
trot (plural trots)
- Alternative form of Trot (“Trotskyist”)
2022 June 15, Christian Wolmar, “What do the railways need and how can we fulfil that need?”, in RAIL, number 959, page 45:The problem is that the likes of Shapps and his boss Boris Johnson are eager for a fight with the unions. They are being deliberately provocative, so they can portray railway workers as 'troublesome trots'.
References
“Trot”, entry in 2008, Anatolij Simonovič Liberman, An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, page 208.