English · Idiom Candidate

hold your horses

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Also seen as: hold one's horses

Sense 1

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Wait. Slow down.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Hãy chờ, chậm lại

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

hold your horses then Mr Curtis.

But if you're prepared to hold your horses a little until that final fence, I've a feeling that you may well end up ahead of the rest of the field [JH]

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Sense 2

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Wait or be patient, don't rush into something.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Hãy kiên nhẫn, đừng vội vàng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: restrain your horses

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Topics: Animal idioms Time Horses

Common questions

What does “hold your horses” mean?

Wait. Slow down.

Is “hold your horses” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.