the horse's mouth

the horse's mouth

A first-hand or extremely reliable source (of some piece of information). A: "Is our test really getting rescheduled?" B: "Yep, our teacher was ahead of me in the lunch line, so I heard it straight from the horse's mouth." I have a source who works directly for the president, so this tip-off is coming straight from the horse's mouth.
See also: mouth
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the horse's mouth

A source of information regarded as original or unimpeachable.
See also: mouth
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.

the horse's mouth

The source of a truthful or honest statement. A likely origin of the phrase is how a horse's age can be determined with a fair degree of accuracy by the number, length, and shape of its teeth. A seller might exaggerate an animal's age, but the merchandise's mouth would reveal the truth.
See also: mouth
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
See also:
  • (straight) from the horse's mouth
  • from the horse's mouth
  • straight from the horse’s mouth
  • hear (something) straight from the horse's mouth
  • get (something) straight from the horse's mouth
  • get straight from the horse's mouth
  • that's the bunny
  • tick
  • bend over, here it comes again
  • BOHICA
References in periodicals archive
8) Adjust the length of the face strap so there are one or two wrinkles at the corner of the horse's mouth.
"It doesn't bother me but I feel the fans deserve to hear the story from the horse's mouth.
No need to speculate about the sexual orientation of the Rawhide Kid, a cowboy that Marvel Comics brought out (but not "out," of course) in 1957: Word of the Kid's sexual orientation came straight from the horse's mouth, metaphorically speaking, that of editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who declared simply: "This is going to be the first gay Western." While the Rawhide Kid will never actually say, "Yep, I'm gay," his demeanor will give him away from the start.
Re your story "A Rip in the AIDS Quilt" [June 25]: If 213 Names Project chapters are still active, it would behoove you to contact each of them to get the facts directly from the horse's mouth. The only source that appears to have been checked out was the negative one.
'Straight from the Horse's Mouth' attempts to tell the reader how to read the thoughts of animals rather than simply interpreting their body language and behaviour.
So, Mr Chairman, you've heard it from the horse's mouth - and I am certain that 99.9 per cent of all the rank-and-file officers out there would agree with me.
Always get downloadable programs from the horse's mouth. Go directly to the vendor's site or to a large, established shareware site such as Jumbo (www.jumbo.com) or CNET (http://shareware.cnet.com).
For me the most impressive contribution is Chandler Kirwin's "The Bubble Reputation: In the Cannon's and the Horse's Mouth." Kirwin proposes that Leonardo intended to cast the great horse not by means of the lost-wax process but in the way in which cannon were cast, and also that the total height of the horse may have been not 7.3 but 9.65 m.
The trait is built into our language, all that apostropheess stuff like "my brother's keeper," "the horse's mouth," and "someone else's opinion." We like to know what belongs to whom.
Trained as an artist, he brought his understanding of a painter's problems to his best - known novel, The Horse's Mouth, the third novel in a trilogy that also included Herself Surprised (1941) and To Be a Pilgrim (1942).
When Nancy turned 60, her husband Raymundo and their children Russel and Rachelle surprised her with a bash at the Horse's Mouth, a Japanese-inspired bar at the Forum on Orchard Road.
New Delhi [India], Nov 25 ( ANI ): Miley Cyrus is "not" pregnant and the words are coming straight from the horse's mouth.
From the Horse's Mouth: |Dr Wynne's Diaries is available in bookshops and online, Gomer, PS12.99.
According to Laha Magazine, attempts have been made to reach Yousif Shabaan to get the verdict from the horse's mouth, but contact has yet to be made.
More customers may be prepared to believe that if they heard it from the horse's mouth, as it were, rather than from the sacrificial lambs sent in their place to face the country's MPs.