ABSTRACT
Pace From Latin passus, ‘a step’, pace has long been used to describe the various ways in which a horse moves along, hence the plural form of ‘put him through his paces’. Touchstone, in As You Like It, presents Time as a horse (3:3:327): ‘Time travels in divers paces, with diverse persons: Ile tell you who Time ambles withall, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withall, and who he stands still withall.’ Army pace requirements are: walk 4 m.p.h., trot 8 m.p.h., gallop 15 m.p.h. To keep a horse up with the pace is to keep it close to the leader; to keep it off the pace is to keep it a little way behind the leaders – in either case pace seems almost to be a short form of pace-maker, the ‘pace’ element meaning ‘speed in running’. A horse which can not keep up with the leaders is said not to go the pace: ‘Those two market leaders could never go the pace set by All Fired Up and Sharp Anne’ (Sporting Life 1 September 1990). See alsofalse;one pace;muddling;no pace.
