Definition of "trot"

Dogs have a variety of gaits. Most dogs have the walk, trot, pace, and gallop.

2000, Margaret H. Bonham, Introduction to: Dog Agility, page 14

The toelt is comfortable for the rider because the amplitude of the dorsoventral displacement is lower than at the trot. […] The slow trot is a two-beat symmetric diagonal gait. Among the normal variations of the trot of saddle horses, the speed of the gait increases from collected to extended trot.

2008, Kenneth W. Hinchcliff, Andris J. Kaneps, Raymond J. Geor, Equine Exercise Physiology: The Science of Exercise in the Athletic Horse, Elsevier, page 154

To assume the correct position for the posting trot, first walk, with the body inclined forward in a posting position. Then put the horse into a slow or sitting trot at six miles an hour. Do not post.

2009, Gordon Wright, George H. Morris, Learning To Ride, Hunt, And Show, page 65

[…] but Ethel romped with the little children — the rosy little trots — and took them on her knees, and told them a thousand stories.

1855, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes, 1869, The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Volume V: The Newcomes, Volume I, page 123

It was to be a hugely special occasion, for apart from the picture shows at the Majestic, there was usually nothing at all going on in Sandspit to make anyone think they were on a good trot living there.

1994, Noel Virtue, Sandspit Crossing, page 34

Should he or she be having a bad trot, the exchange rate will be higher than normal.

2004, John Mosig, Ric Fallu, Australian Fish Farmer: A Practical Guide to Aquaculture, 2nd edition, page 21

I would trot ten or twelve miles each day, go into a cheap restaurant and eat my fill of bread, but would never be satisfied. During these wanderings I once hit on a vegetarian restaurant in Farringdon Street. The sight of it filled me with the same joy that a child feels on getting a thing after its own heart.

1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xiv

They sent little Jane to the garden to play, / But she opened the gate, and then trotted away / Under the hawthorns and down the green lane, / Bad little, mad little, runaway Jane!

c. 1920s-1930s, Charlotte Druitt Cole, Runaway Jane

It was earliest morning, when even small trees cast long shadows and scarlet foxes trot denward through the dew like flecks of fire.

1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXVIII, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, page 164

A particular friend of mine complained that I had "trotted" him at a sale, but he did not see what was happening on the part of the other bidder.

1927, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, The Parliamentary Debates (Official Report), page 2221

The problem is that the likes of Shapps and his boss Boris Johnson are eager for a fight with the unions. They are being deliberately provocative, so they can portray railway workers as 'troublesome trots'.

2022 June 15, Christian Wolmar, “What do the railways need and how can we fulfil that need?”, in RAIL, number 959, page 45