Meaning
A painful involuntary muscle cramp, particularly in the thigh or calf - Wiktionary defines it as a synonym of cramp, chiefly US, and McGraw-Hill as 'a painful, persistent cramp in the arm or leg, usually from strain'. Sufferers know it as the leg cramp that strikes in the night; the word also names a dead-leg bruise in sport. Spelling varies between charley and charlie horse, the 1886 first citation using Charlie. Now used interchangeably with leg cramp and dead leg. The Joe Quest attribution comes from the 1886 newspaper account itself - the earliest witness, not a settled verdict. Regional use: United States origin; chiefly North American usage.
Origin
An American baseball coinage of the 1880s. Wikipedia records that the term arose in baseball in the United States in the 1880s, its exact origin uncertain, with the first known written use in 1886 - and Wiktionary quotes that first citation in full, the Boston Globe of 17 July 1886: 'Several years ago, says the Chicago Tribune, Joe Quest, now of the Athletics, gave the name of Charlie horse to a peculiar contraction and hardening of the muscles and tendons of the thigh, to which base ball players are especially liable from the sudden starting and stopping in chasing balls, as well as the frequent slides in base running.' So the earliest account credits the ballplayer Joe Quest - though Wikipedia notes the origin has been attributed to two different players, and the lame-horse stories remain folklore. The dictionaries disagree by two years: Merriam-Webster gives 1886 and derives the word from Charley, a nickname for Charles; the OED's earliest evidence is 1888, in the writing of M. J. Kelly - Mike King Kelly, the baseball star, whose own playing days fit the coinage era.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- charley horses
- charlie horse
Usage Examples
- A charley horse woke her at three in the morning, and she walked it off along the landing.
- Don't hike the ridge without water; that's where the charley horses come from.
- The trainer worked on the cramp for ten minutes, but the charley horse kept him out of the seventh.