1. The figure of a white horse: see HORSE sb. 23. Also as the sign, and hence the name, of an inn.
1647. in B. Nightingale, Ejected of 1662 (1911), II. 909. Send one of Yor servants to the White horse wthout Creeple gate to fetch it.
2. A crested wave: see HORSE sb. 23 b.
1849. Kingsley, Lett., in Life, vii. (1879), I. 168. The bay is now curling and writhing in white horses under a smoking south-wester.
1888. Rider Haggard, Mr. Meeson’s Will, v. Looking at the ‘white horses’ chasing each other across the watery plain.
3. Local name for a species of ray (fish).
1710. Sibbald, Hist. Fife, 51. Raja aspera, the White Horse.
4. The West Indian shrub Portlandia grandiflora (N. O. Rubiaceæ), with large white flowers, cultivated in hot-houses.
1866. Treas. Bot., 1232/1.
5. A tough sinewy substance lying between the upper jaw and junk of a sperm-whale.
1874. C. M. Scammon, Marine Mammals N. Amer., 312.
6. Mining. (local.) See quot. and HORSE sb. 11.
1886. J. Barrowman, Sc. Mining Terms, 72. White horse, intruded white trap in a coal seam.
