horsepower
Pronunciation
  • (America) enPR: hôrsʹpou'ər, IPA: /ˈhɔɹsˌpaʊɚ/
  • (RP) enPR: hôsʹpou'ə, IPA: /ˈhɔːsˌpaʊə/
Noun

horsepower

  1. (uncountable) Power derived from the motion of a horse.
    • 2003, Gavin Weightman, What the Industrial Revolution Did for Us (page 57)
      The wheel was to have been turned by horsepower, but it was adapted to be driven by a mill-wheel on the river Derwent […]
  2. A non-metric unit of power (symbol hp) with various definitions, for different applications. The most common of them is probably the mechanical horsepower, approximately equal to 745.7 watts.
    • 2012 March 22nd, David Blockley, Engineering: A Very Short Introduction (309), Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199578696, chapter 2: “The age of gravity – time for work”, page 20:
      In the past, before the widespread adoption of SI units, the work that engines were capable of doing was compared with the work that horses could do – hence the term ‘horsepower’. Various people came up with various equivalencies, but the modern agreed definition is that 1 horsepower is 746 joules per second or 746 watts.
  3. A metric unit (symbol often PS from the German abbreviation), approximately equal to 735.5 watts.
  4. (uncountable) Strength.
    political horsepower
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations
  • Portuguese: força
  • Russian: лошади́ная си́ла



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