spavined

adj

1. Of a horse: having spavin (“a disease of horses caused by a bony swelling which develops in a leg due to inflammation”).

   “[H]e […] made a present to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined poney, in order to enable him to pursue his journey.”

   “A horse-giver, no more than a horse-seller, has a right to palm his spavined article upon us for good ware. An equivalent is expected in either case; and, with my own good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks, than out of my money.”

   “[…] Mr. Thumble, […] had ridden over to Hogglestock on a poor spavined brute belonging to the bishop's stable, and which had once been the bishop's cob.”

   “As for the wonderful feats of horsemanship one hears of or sees among the Arabs, they are due to sharp spurs like razors, and to bits strong enough to break an animal's jaw. […] The favourite feat at their fantasias or fêtes of suddenly pulling up their horses short while at a hand-gallop, ruins their legs, and there is in consequence scarcely a horse to be seen whose hind-legs are not spavined.”

   “The Whig party was supposed to be broken in 1842. It was likened to the man who wished to sell his horse. A by-stander asked if the horse was not spavined? "Spavined! I don't know what that is; but if the horse is any better for being spavined, then he is spavined!"”

2. (broadly)Of a person: lame due to a leg disease.
3. (figuratively)Of a person or a thing: old, worn-out; also, obsolete.

   “I’m a spavined old warrior, and I don’t have much time left in this world, but I still have a few tricks to teach these whippersnappers.”

   “If God hide his path, Satan is at hand to turn Convoy: if any have a minde to ride poſte, hee vvill helpe them vvith a freſh ſpavin'd Opinion at every Stage.”

   “Now the Bard, glad to get an audience, […] / stuck fast with his first hexameter, / Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. // But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd / Into recitative, in great dismay / Both cherubim and seraphim were heard / To murmur loudly through their long array; […]”

   “"Fo—o—o—re!" The cry, in certain of its essentials not unlike the wail of a soul in torment, rolled out over the valley, and the young man on the seventh tee, from whose lips it had proceeded, observing that the little troupe of spavined octogenarians doddering along the fairway paid no attention whatever, gave his driver a twitch as if he was about to substitute action for words.”

verb

1. (form-of, participle, past)simple past and past participle of spavin