Definition of "gallop" []

• A natural three-beat gait of a horse, faster than a canter, in which all four feet are off the ground at the same time during each stride. (noun)
• A fast running motion of other quadrupeds. (noun)
• A ride taken at a gallop. (noun)
• A rapid pace: Events were proceeding at a gallop. (noun)
• Medicine A disordered rhythm of the heart characterized by three or four distinct heart sounds in each cycle and resembling the sound of a galloping horse. Also called cantering rhythm, gallop rhythm. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In order to avoid that risk again, the jockey would have Spread the Word gallop for a mile or two before a race so as to exhaust it."
• "An ambitious and fearless gallop from the jungles of Africa via a shocking encounter on a Nigerian beach to the media offices of London and domesticity in leafy suburbia ..."
• "In charging, I had noticed how they had opened their ranks at the canter and then closed them at the gallop, which isn't easy; now they were doing the same thing as they retired towards the Heights, and I thought, these fellows ain't so slovenly as we thought."