Link Centre Dictionary

horsepower

hor·se·po·wer

UK/ˈhɔːsˌpaʊə/ US/ˈhɔɹsˌpaʊɚ/ fairly common

noun

1.

a unit of power equal to 746 watts

Synonyms

Origin

From horse + power: the unit was originally defined as the amount of power that a horse could provide. Both non-metric and metric units of power were derived from effectively identical measurements of the power a draught horse could sustain over several hours, with the difference in watts solely due to different rounding errors to express that power in round numbers in the original non-SI units (ft·lbf/min and kgf⋅m/s respectively).

Phrases

  • brake horsepower
  • equivalent shaft horsepower
  • hydraulic horsepower
  • mechanical horsepower
  • metric horsepower
  • shaft horsepower
  • tax horsepower
  • thermal horsepower

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Part of

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.