HORSE POWER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Horse power

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/hɔrs pˈaʊər/ Listen

noun

Horse power n.

1.

The power which a horse exerts.

2.

(Mach.) A unit of power, used in stating the power required to drive machinery, and in estimating the capabilities of animals or steam engines and other prime movers for doing work. It is the power required for the performance of work at the rate of 33,000 English units of work per minute; hence, it is the power that must be exerted in lifting 33,000 pounds at the rate of one foot per minute, or 550 pounds at the rate of one foot per second, or 55 pounds at the rate of ten feet per second, etc. Note: The power of a draught horse, of average strength, working eight hours per day, is about four fifths of a standard horse power.

Brake horse power, the net effective power of a prime mover, as a steam engine, water wheel, etc., in horse powers, as shown by a friction brake. See Friction brake, under Friction.

Indicated horse power, the power exerted in the cylinder of an engine, stated in horse powers, estimated from the diameter and speed of the piston, and the mean effective pressure upon it as shown by an indicator. See Indicator.

Nominal horse power (Steam Engine), a term still sometimes used in England to express certain proportions of cylinder, but having no value as a standard of measurement.

3.

A machine worked by a horse, for driving other machinery; a horse motor.

See images of 'Horse power'

Etymology of 'Horse power'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Horse power" Quotes from Famous Books

... added another iron foundry to his smaller shops; he obtained many good engineering tools, and in course of time he began to make steam-engines for agricultural purposes. These were used in lieu of horse power for thrashing corn, and performing several operations that used to be done by hand labour in the farmyards. Orders came in rapidly, and before long the chimneys of Douglass's steam-engines were as familiar in the country round Edinburgh as corn stacks. All the large farms, especially in Midlothian ...

— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... stone chipped roughly into shape, and the age of stone even-edged and smoothly polished. There was really no gap worth speaking of. The Paleolithic age changed as suddenly into the Neolithic as the age of horse power changed into that of steam and electricity, allowance being always made for the slower transmission of a new intelligence in the days when men lived alone and when a hundred years in the diffusion of knowledge ...

— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... indicative of progress in locomotion. To complete the series, and for the purpose of historical record, subjoined is a picture of the first Motor vehicle used (1904-1905) in Bristol for the rapid transport of His Majesty's Mails by road. No doubt, in process of time, this handy little 5-horse power car, built to a Bristol Post Office design, to carry loads of 3-1/2 cwt., and constructed by the Avon Motor Company, Keynsham, near Bristol, will have numerous fellow cars darting about in the roads and crowded thoroughfares of Bristol for the collection of letters and ...

— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... England set invention working on a definite, continuous {8} object. As the shafts were sunk to lower and lower levels, it became impossible to pump the water out of the mines by horse power, and the aid of steam was sought. Just at the close of the seventeenth century Savery devised the first commercial steam-engine, or rather steam fountain, which applied cold water to the outside of the cylinder to condense the steam ...

— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... an eternity, they were ready to start once more. Peggy lost no time in taking to the air. With her every cylinder developing its full horse power, the aeroplane sky-rocketed upward at a rate that made Wandering William ...

— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com