# charlie horse

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 13, 2015, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896 "2015-03-13T06:19:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896/1 "2015-03-13T06:19:18Z")

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Charlie horse or charely horse, why when our calf muscles cramp we call it that?

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**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896/2 "2015-03-13T06:43:09Z")

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Poking around online, it seems that the term dates back to the 1800s and is of unknown origin. The term was popularized in baseball but probably existed before then. The sites I looked at generally agreed that it most likely originally referred to a lame horse, either a horse named Charley or a lame horse owned by someone named Charley, possibly a racehorse.

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**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896/3 "2015-03-13T12:05:24Z")

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I think that it is almost exclusively American.

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896/4 "2015-03-13T12:19:13Z")

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Definitely American. 1886. Baseball.

Newspaper articles from that year attribute it to player Joe Quest. The theory about a horse named Charley or Charlie was never brought up until later.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896/5 "2015-03-13T20:05:28Z")

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I’m almost sure I’ve also seen the colloquial phrase “Charley Horse” to mean a centaur. Has anyone else ever seen it used that way, or am just remembering things that never happened?

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**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-horse/714896/6 "2015-03-13T20:11:29Z")

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[One search for a source.](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/486616?sid=21105638668751&uid=3739560&uid=4&uid=2&uid=3739256)