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Neigh vs whinny vs nicker vs whicker: what is the difference?
Four words, two sounds. Here is which horse sound each name belongs to, and how to tell the two sounds apart.
Neigh and whinny: the same call
Neigh and whinny are two names for the long, loud horse call: a high start that falls away into a shaky, rolling finish, often lasting a second or more. Neigh is the everyday word, the one in children’s books. Horse people more often say whinny.
You hear it most when a horse is apart from its herd mates, when another horse comes into view, or when a horse is led away from the field. It carries a long way, and horses can tell each other apart by it.
A 2015 study published in Scientific Reports found that a whinny carries two separate frequencies at the same time, which is unusual among mammals.
Nicker and whicker: the same sound
Nicker and whicker are two names for the low, soft rumble a horse makes with its mouth closed. It is a close-range sound, heard at feeding time, when a familiar person or horse comes near, and between a mare and her foal.
How to tell them apart
- Loudness: a whinny carries across fields; a nicker is for a few metres.
- Mouth: a whinny is made with the mouth open; a nicker with it closed.
- Length: a whinny often lasts a second or more; a nicker is short.
- Distance: horses whinny to horses that are far away, and nicker to those that are near.
The other horse sounds
- Snort: a hard breath out through the nose with a flutter.
- Blow: a strong breath out through the nose without the flutter.
- Squeal: a short, high, sharp sound, most often when two horses meet and sniff noses.
See which one you caught
Neigh, the horse translator for iPhone, names the call type for every sound in your video, so you can see whether you caught a whinny, a nicker, a snort or a squeal, and writes a translated line onto the clip.
Questions
Is it neigh or whinny?
Both. Neigh and whinny are two names for the same long, loud horse call.
What is a whicker?
Another name for the nicker: the low, soft, close-range sound a horse makes with its mouth closed.
What sound does a horse make?
The best known horse sound is the neigh, also called a whinny. Horses also nicker, snort, blow and squeal.
Do ponies and donkeys neigh?
Ponies neigh just like horses. Donkeys bray instead, a loud “hee-haw” that sounds very different from a whinny.