Stud(horse)

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net


If you look up stud in the Random House Dictionary you will
find:

"stud (stud),n. 1) a studhorse or stallion. 2) an
establishment, as a farm, in which horses are kept for
breeding....4) a male animal, as a bull or ram, kept for
breeding."

SO it would seem that a stud is first a horse...then a
place. :)

However, Webster (generally) puts them in the opposite
order.

Whichever dictionary you prefer (I have always preferred the
Random House myself), a stud is both a place and a horse, and 
neither of these dictionaries is the use of stud to refer to 
a horse (as opposed to a place) indicated to be slang or as
"nonstandard in US except in some dialects" which is the way 
that Random house describes "ain't."

I don't have my OED dictionary handy, so I cannot look up the
standard British usage, but in standard American usage, using
the word "stud" to refer to a horse is perfectly "correct."  It
may be that historically speaking the word stud was used to 
describe a place before it was used to describe a horse, but 
now, it is used to describe both.

In the long run, however, the only thing that matters is
whether people understand you when you use the words that
you choose.  And very few people would misunderstand the
word "stud" if applied to a horse...in fact, they are more
likely to misunderstand you if you apply it to a place. :) as
few people, outside of the small world of horse breeding know
that a "stud" is a horse farm.

And the word stud has a whole bunch of other meanings as well
associated with knobs and frames...totally unrelated to both
horses and farms....but if you use them in the right context
it is unlikely you will be misunderstood....except by people
who choose to deliberately misunderstand you.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  
For me, the distinction that I make is that a stallion is
any adult, unaltered, male horse (I don't count colts as
stallions) and a stud or studhorse is a breeding stallion. 
And I will also, because many people use the word "colt" to
mean any young horse, call a juvenile, unaltered male horse
a "studcolt" and this is also a very common usage. And on
the racetrack a "horse" is an unaltered, adult male horse,
which just goes to show you that different places have
different usages.

An unaltered male animal (of any species) irrespective of
age and whether they are used for breeding or not I will
call an "entire." (However, 9 times out of 10 people don't
know what I am talking about if I say this...unless I say it
in Spanish, then all the native Spanish speakers
understand).