Galloped

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To move in a swift and bounding manner, often resembling the vigorous movement of a horse, while also implying quick travel on horseback or energetic progress across a distance
2. To proceed at a fast pace similar to a horse's gallop, commonly used for horses or people moving quickly on horseback
3. To move forward swiftly with a bounding motion characteristic of a horse's fast gait

Etymology: "Galloped" is the past tense of "gallop", and the verb's roots are in the image of running well. It comes from Old French "galoper", which in turn came from a Frankish phrase, "wala hlaupan", meaning "to run well". The first part, "wala", meant "well", and the second, "hlaupan", meant "to run", a word that also gave English "leap". So the horse's gait was named for a fast, smooth run. A second, less certain theory links the word to a Frankish compound meaning "battle run", built from words for "battlefield" and "course". The same ancestry produced "wallop", a doublet that came into English through a northern French variant and kept the sense of a heavy blow. Some scholars regard this battle origin as a possibility rather than settled fact, and it is the rival explanation most often cited alongside the "run well" account.

Synonyms: raced, cantered, charged, dashed, sprinted

Antonyms: walked, strolled, ambled, trod, paced