Straight from the horse's mouth
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
Directly from the original, authoritative, or best-informed source.
Origin
The expression comes from nineteenth-century horse-racing journalism. An 1861 British sporting notice offered information straight from the horse's mouth, and later reports made the joke explicit: bettors wanted a tip so direct that the horse itself seemed to have supplied it. The phrase is therefore about supposedly unimpeachable racing information. The alternative explanation based on inspecting a horse's teeth confuses it with the separate sayings long in the tooth and do not look a gift horse in the mouth.
Research Sources
Variants
- From the horse's mouth
- Right from the horse's mouth
Usage Examples
- I heard the merger was approved straight from the horse's mouth: the chief executive told us this morning.
- Ask Theo about the route if you want the answer from the horse's mouth.
- The statement came right from the horse's mouth, not from an anonymous post.