rubican

French (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

rubican (not comparable)

1. (rare, of a horse) Coloured mostly red, bay, or black, with flecks of white or grey especially on the flanks.

   Synonym: rabicano

   • 1729, Jacques de Solleysel, William Hope, transl., The Compleat Horseman: or, Perfect Farrier, page 65:

     There are other mixt kind of colours, such as the Rubican; which is when a black or sorrel Horse hath white Hairs here and there scattered upon his Body, but especially upon his Flanks.

   • 1904, Armand Goubaux, Gustave Barrier, Simon J.J. Harger, transl., The Exterior of the Horse, page 788:

     The grayish and the flea-bitten differ from the rubican, in that the white hairs which form these markings are sufficiently numerous to change, locally, the nature of the base of the coat.

   • 1909, Burchard von Oettingen, Horse Breeding in Theory and Practice, page 331:

     When both parents are brown, foals may be of any colour, also gray if one parent is rubican. The majority of foals, however, will likewise be brown.

• rubican in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• carubin

rubican (feminine rubicane, masculine plural rubicans, feminine plural rubicanes)

1. rubican

• “rubican”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.