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Webster 1913 Edition


Pastern

Pas′tern

,
Noun.
[Of.
pasturon
, F.
pâturon
, fr. OF.
pasture
a tether, for beasts while pasturing; prop., a pasturing. See
Pasture
.]
1.
The part of the foot of the horse, and allied animals, between the fetlock and the coffin joint. See Illust. of
Horse
.
☞ The upper bone, or phalanx, of the foot is called the
great pastern bone
; the second, the
small pastern bone
; and the third, in the hoof, the
coffin bone
.
Pastern joint
,
the joint in the hoof of the horse, and allied animals, between the great and small pastern bones.
2.
A shackle for horses while pasturing.
Knight.
3.
A patten.
[Obs.]
Dryden.

Webster 1828 Edition


Pastern

PAS'TERN

,
Noun.
The part of a horse's leg between the joint next the foot and the coronet of the hoof.
1.
The human leg; in contempt.

Definition 2024


pastern

pastern

English

Noun

pastern (plural pasterns)

  1. The area on a horse's leg between the fetlock joint and the hoof.
    • 1918, Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Oxford 1998), page 158:
      It was quite impossible to ride over the deeply-ploughed field; the earth bore only where there was still a little ice, in the thawed furrows the horse's legs sank in above its pasterns.
    • 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin 2013, p. 227:
      Below me, somewhere in the horse-lines, stood Cockbird, picketed to a peg in the ground by a rope which was already giving him a sore pastern.
  2. (obsolete) A shackle for horses while pasturing.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)
  3. (obsolete) A patten.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

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