sb. pl., occas. sing. wither. Also 7 weather-. [app. a reduced form of widersome or -sone (see quots. 1541–2, 1547), f. wider- = WITHER-1 + an obscure element; cf. G. widerrist withers, f. wider- WITHER-1 + rist WRIST.] In a horse, The highest part of the back, lying between the shoulder-blades. Also, the corresponding part in some other animals, as the ox or the sheep. Often in fig. context, esp. after Shaks. (quot. 1602), with allusion to the ‘wringing’ of a horse’s withers.
1541–2. Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 5 § 1. Every horse … to be … in heyght xiiij handfulles … measured from the nether parte of the here of the houghe unto the upper part of the Wydersomes, That is to saye, the upper parte of the Shulders.
1547. Salesbury, Dict. Engl. Welsh, Yskwydd gudun, the wyder sone.
1580. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 249. Wring not a horse on the withers, with a false saddle.
1594. Blundevil, Exerc., IV. xix. (1597), 221 b. In his [sc. the Bull’s] necke toward the Withers are 7 starres.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, P 4. That wrung him on the withers worse than all the rest.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. ii. 252. Let the gall’d iade winch: our withers are vnrung.
1607. Dekker & Webster, Westw. Hoe, V. i. H 2 b. Never were three innocent Citizens … so abhominably wrung vnder the withers.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. IV., cccxlvii. Though the chaine of Tyrranye … gall’d the withers of their will.
1729. Swift, Direct. Serv., v. Contrive that the Saddle may pinch the Beast in his Withers.
1838. Lytton, Alice, V. iii. ‘Tell me now,’ said Caroline pressing on the wrung withers, [etc.].
1839. Darwin, Voy. Nat., ii. 25. The Vampire bat is often the cause of much trouble, by biting the horses on their withers.
1867. S. Baker, Nile Trib., xviii. 475. The shoulders [of the sable antelope], are extremely high at the withers.
1886. Symonds, Renaiss. It., Cath. React. (1898), VII. xi. 179. There is not a city of Italy which Tassoni did not wring in the withers of its self-conceit.
sing. 1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 597. The wither of the beast, I meane the top of his shoulder next to his necke.
1695. Lond. Gaz., No. 3096/4. A black Gelding,… the Hair clipt on his Wither.
1770. G. White, Selborne, To Pennant, March. I measured it [sc. the moose-deer], as they do an horse, and found that, from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four inches.
1850. ‘H. Hieover’ (C. Brindley), Pract. Horsemanship, 118. The saddle, pressing on the off side of the wither, would pinch the horse and make him uneasy.
1908. Animal Managem., 160. A wide wither is nearly as troublesome as a high one.
b. transf. The part of a saddle that comes over the withers.
1764. T. Wallis, Farrier’s Dict., s.v. Bows of a Saddle, The withers is the arch that rises two or three fingers over the horse’s withers.
c. attrib. and Comb., as wither-gall, -strap; witherband, -lock (see quots.); witherwrung a., injured in the withers.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xxxi. 54. A three-wheel’d Charret … drawn by lean weatherwrung-Jades.
1764. T. Wallis, Farrier’s Dict., s.v. Bands of a Saddle, Besides these two great bands, the fore-bow has a small one called the wither-band, and a crescent to keep up the wither arch. Ibid., Witherband,… a band or piece of iron, laid underneath a saddle, about four fingers above the withers of the horse, to keep tight the two pieces of wood that form the bow.
1767. S. Paterson, Another Trav., II. v. 57. A … broken-winded … wither-wrung … horse.
1794. W. Felton, Carriages (1801), II. Gloss., Wither Strap, a part of the harness, which goes round the withers of the horse to hold up the collar.
1825. Jamieson, Witherlock, that lock of hair in the mane, of which one takes hold when mounting on horse-back.
1886. Cornh. Mag., Sept., 299. Many of them had open kidney-sores and wither-galls so large and deep that they had remained unhealed five months after the heavy Mexican saddles which caused them had been removed from their backs.
