This study investigates the semantic structure and cultural underpinnings of equestrian lexical units in English and Uzbek. Drawing on corpus data (150 million English words; 40 million Uzbek words), specialised glossaries and ethnographic commentary, it identifies central and peripheral members of the semantic field that centres on the lexeme horse (ot). Componential, contextual-collocational and cognitive-onimic analyses reveal both universal and culture-specific patterns of lexical differentiation. English demonstrates fine-grained terminological density in breeding, conformation and competition, whereas Uzbek shows greater lexical granularity in ethno-equine practices such as kopkari, ceremonial processions and steppe horse husbandry. Despite typological distance, both languages share a tripartite core of basic zoological, functional and metaphorical meanings anchored in Indo-European and Altaic conceptual schemata of mobility, status and vitality. The results have implications for bilingual lexicography, translation studies and intercultural communication in veterinary and sport-management domains.

Equestrian lexicon, semantic field, comparative linguistics

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