(formed of ἵππος, "horse," κέντων, γάγγρα, "I spur;" and ταῦρος, "bull"), in antiquity, a fabulous monster, supposed to be half horse and half man.

What gave occasion to the fable was, that a people of Thessaly, inhabiting near Mount Pelion, became thus denominated, because they were the first that taught the art of mounting on horseback; which occasioned some of their neighbours to imagine, that the horse and man made but one animal.

The hippocentaur should seem to have differed from the centaurs, in this, that the latter only rode on bullocks, and the former on horses, as the names themselves intimate.