saddle bow

• saddle-bow, saddlebow

From Middle English sadel-bowe, sadel-boȝe, from Old English sadulboga, sadolboga, equivalent to saddle +‎ bow. Displaced non-native arson (“saddle bow”), from Middle English arsoun.

saddle bow (plural saddle bows)

1. The front part of the saddle that is arched up like a bow.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     the Prince […] stroke the Pagan with his steely brand / So sore, that to his saddle-bow thereby / He bowed low, and so a while did lie […].

   • 1931 October 12, “Sand in the Streets”, in Time:

     The Government mobilized the full force of 18,000 mounted gendarmes and sent them picking their way over the sand about as heavily armored as any policeman could be: a long lance in one hand, a sabre at the saddle bow, a rifle across the back, a pistol on the hip.