Flogging a dead horse. To put the cart before the horse means to do something out of order, to have the wrong priorities, to prioritize inconsequential things over important things. Rate it: (3.50 / 2 votes) Put the Cart before the Horse: Another way this phrase goes is "putting the cart before the horse," and the carriage (or the cart) always follows behind a horse. Sort:Relevancy A - Z. put the cart before the horse: To put things in the wrong order or with the wrong priorities. Meaning of Put The Cart Before The Horse. Get off your high horse. Dark horse. Meaning of “Put The Cart Before The Horse” phrase of Idiom, definition and synonyms use in sentence. Phrases related to: horse and cart Yee yee! We've found 3,288 phrases and idioms matching horse and cart. It comes from the literal meaning of a horse pulling a cart. The figure of speech means doing things the wrong way round or with the wrong emphasis. Don't shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. A cart is a vehicle which is ordinarily pulled by a horse, so to put the cart before the horse is an analogy for doing things in the wrong order. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse. This expression has existed in English since the early-1500s. Ginger up. Hobby-horse. The accompanying horse and cart image looks preposterous. Hold your horses. What's the origin of the phrase 'Put the cart before the horse'? Put The Cart Before The Horse is an idiom. Roman politician and philosopher Cicero (106 B.C.–43 B.C.) The expression cart before the horse is an idiom or proverb used to suggest something is done contrary to a convention or culturally expected order or relationship. You could not put a horse before a cart as the horse was necessary to pull the cart. Origin of Put the Cart Before the Horse. Put The Cart Before The Horse stands for To put things in the wrong order. put the cart before the horse meaning: 1. to do things in the wrong order: 2. to do things in the wrong order: . People travelled by horse and cart and there was a predetermined order in which they travelled. Horse feathers. draft horse: see “cart horse” (also spelled, in British English, “draught horse”) 20. dun: a grayish-yellow horse with a dark mane and tail; also, that color, or drab and dull 21. feral horse: a free-roaming horse of domesticated ancestry, often loosely referred to as a “wild horse” 22. field hunter: see hunter 23. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Horse and cart. Of course, 'pre' derives from Latin and is a standard prefix, that is, it is 'at the front'. The phrase was a popular figure of speech in the 16 th century. However, other languages had the same expression hundreds of years before that. Mare's nest. It is one of the most commonly used expressions in English writings. More likely, no actual practice was involved, and the idea of expecting a horse to push rather than pull a cart simply struck our ancestors as foolish futility. Horse-sense. 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