Horsemen

How to spell horsemen

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce horsemen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does horsemen mean?

1. nounMen who ride or are skilled at riding horses.

Horsemen in a sentence

• The mounted horsemen led the parade through the town square.

• Experienced horsemen guided the cattle across the river.

Where does horsemen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, formed from the Old English words 'hors', the animal, and 'man', a human being and by extension a rider or attendant. Both elements are thoroughly Germanic: 'hors' has cousins across the old Germanic languages, while 'mann' originally meant simply 'a person' before narrowing toward the male sense. The compound 'horseman' has been used in English since the medieval period to describe someone skilled at riding, and the plural 'horsemen' follows the irregular man/men vowel change inherited from Old English rather than adding a regular -s. That irregular plural is the only real spelling point: the word is built transparently from two short, familiar pieces, so the second syllable simply shifts from 'man' to 'men' for the plural.

How the word is built

• horse (the animal)
• men (plural of man, rider)

Words that sound like horsemen

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• horseman: A man who rides a horse, especially one skilled at riding.