After “mama” and “dada,” names for animals rank near the top of the list of vocabulary words for babies. We love to ask toddlers, “What sound does a kitten make?” And people of all ages cry with delight when they see cows, horses, and sheep in fields from the car. This animal fascination isn’t hard to understand, but what’s less clear is the connection between the names for some of our favorite animals and their juvenile or diminutive forms.
Take “horse” and the corresponding “pony” — the two words don’t appear to have any etymology in common, so what’s the relation? We can trace “pony” back to pony, the Scottish word to describe a very small horse, which has been in use since the mid-17th century. At the time, the specific definition of powny was “a horse less than 13 hands tall.” It likely came from a (now-obsolete) French word, poulenet, that had roughly the same meaning: “little foal.” “Foal” is the technical term for a horse younger than 1 year old (“filly” is specifically a young female horse), but among children it’s common to use the word “pony” instead. The modern definition of “pony” is a horse of a small breed that is less than 58 inches (14 1/2 hands) tall at the shoulder.
The usage of pony as an indicator of something smaller than usual also has spilled over into barware. The pony glass comes in two styles: a quarter-pint of beer or a 1-ounce pour (sometimes called a cordial glass). ”Pony keg” is slang for a quarter-barrel keg, a size popular with homebrewers.
The next time you point out animals on a road trip, take note of the size. Is that horse shorter than 5 feet? You’ve spotted a pony.
