The phrase “hold your horses” means to wait, slow down, or stop for a moment, often when you think that someone is going to do something silly or rash. It is an old-fashioned and informal expression that is usually used as an instruction or a request. For example, you can say “Hold your horses, let me finish this first” or “Hold your horses, you don’t know the whole story yet”.
The origin of the phrase is not very clear, but it is related to horse riding or travelling by horse, or driving a horse-drawn vehicle. One possible source is from ancient Greece, where Homer used the phrase in the Iliad to describe a chariot race. Another possible source is from the 19th-century United States, where “hoss” was a slang term for horse and the phrase was written as “hold your hosses” in many publications. A third possible source is from the military, where soldiers had to hold their horses during the noise of battle or gunpowder explosions.
The phrase has a similar meaning to “cool your jets”, which is another way of telling someone to calm down or be patient. However, “cool your jets” is more modern and has a literal meaning of reducing the temperature of jet engines.
