Ponies

The My Little Pony brand describes its characters as ponies. The brand's toys, as the name suggests, usually consist of small colorful plastic ponies. The characters on the various My Little Pony television shows and movies are depicted with varying degrees of fantasy elements, like the ability to speak, fly, and use magic.

Use of the term "ponies"
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic divides the ponies into three "types":
 * Earth ponies, who most closely resemble real ponies for having no wings or a unicorn horn.
 * Pegasus ponies, for whom two terms are used: "Pegasi" in the episodes Sonic Rainboom and The Return of Harmony Part 1, and "Pegasus ponies" in Sonic Rainboom and Look Before You Sleep. When referring to a single pony, "Pegasus" is always used, with the exception of "Pegasus pony" in Friendship is Magic, part 1.
 * Unicorns, which are always referred to by this term in the show, but the wiki also uses the term "unicorn ponies" for consistency with "Pegasus ponies" and "Earth ponies", since unicorns are also called ponies.

The three princesses, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance are referred to as unicorns in the season one episode Friendship is Magic, part 1 and the season two episode A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1 despite having both a unicorn horn and wings; they are called "Pony Princesses" in Hasbro's merchandise. Between the original airings of seasons two and three, Meghan McCarthy stated at the October 2012 New York Comic Con that she had used the term "pegacorn" in the show's scripts, and mentioned switching to the term "alicorn". In the season three episode Magical Mystery Cure, Twilight Sparkle is described as an alicorn once she gains wings.

Other terms
Trixie boasts in Boast Busters that she is destined to be "the greatest equine who has ever lived"; Sapphire Shores mentions "Clothes Horse magazine" in A Dog and Pony Show; and Braeburn refers to other ponies as "horses" in Over a Barrel. In The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, Flam states that "Any horse can make a claim and any pony can do the same", which would seem to suggest that horses and ponies are two different things. Four other kinds of equines are featured in the show: Zecora, who is a zebra and explicitly stated not to be a pony; Cranky Doodle Donkey, who is a donkey as his name implies; Matilda, another donkey; a mule that is used as a visual gag in Applebuck Season, Hurricane Fluttershy, and One Bad Apple; and Mulia Mild, another mule. One of the Diamond Dogs refers to Rarity as a "mule" in A Dog and Pony Show, which she acts deeply upset about.

Horse-like stylization
The show's developer, Lauren Faust, wanted the ponies to act in ways characteristic of horses and avoid human conventions that wouldn't fit with their stylization, like human poses and holding items in their hooves. Faust wanted the characters to "evoke the feeling of a natural horse". Exceptions have been made throughout the show either intentionally or accidentally.

Use of instruments
Most of the time ponies hold objects with their mouths, with their "wrist", between their hooves, by using magic, or simply just with a single hoof: ponies hold shovels in their hooves in Winter Wrap Up, and Octavia and the violin playing pony in Luna Eclipsed "hold" the instrument's bow with their hoof.

Applause
Ponies applaud in the series in two different ways. The first is by clapping their front hooves together, performed by Twilight Sparkle in Look Before You Sleep, by Hoity Toity in Suited for Success, and by Apple Bloom's classmates in Family Appreciation Day. The second way characters applaud is by stamping their front hooves on the ground, first done by the theater audience in The Show Stoppers; other examples are the applause by the fashion show audience and Rarity in Green Isn't Your Color, and by crowds in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, The Last Roundup, and Putting Your Hoof Down.

Hoof-bump
A hoof-bump, or high-hoof, can imitate either a handshake, high-five, or even a fist bump. Ponies bump their hooves in several instances in the series:
 * Look Before You Sleep: Rarity declines a hoof-bump by Applejack since she spit on her own hoof before offering it. Later, the two of them do a hoof-bump after Twilight declares her slumber party a success.
 * Fall Weather Friends: Applejack and Rainbow Dash do a spit-soaked hoof-bump before competing against each other before the Iron Pony competition and before the Running of the Leaves.
 * A Bird in the Hoof: Rainbow Dash and Philomena hoof/wing-bump toward the end of the episode.
 * Sisterhooves Social: Applejack and Apple Bloom hoof-bump (referred to by Sweetie Belle as a "high-hoof") after corralling sheep.
 * A Friend in Deed: Pinkie Pie uses the term "hoof-bump" during the Smile Song.
 * Ponyville Confidential: The Cutie Mark Crusaders do a three-way hoof-bump several times throughout the episode.
 * They also perform this action, albeit, in a tired fashion, in One Bad Apple.
 * A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1, The Crystal Empire - Part 1, and Games Ponies Play: Twilight and Princess Cadance do a double hoof-bump in their "sunshine, sunshine" dance.
 * Wonderbolts Academy: The term "hoof-bump" is once again used, this time by Rainbow Dash.
 * Games Ponies Play: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy hoof-bump during the "Equestria Games Inspector's" visit to the Crystal Empire.

Other gestures
In Keep Calm and Flutter On, Rainbow Dash moves her hooves to imitate air quotes, even though part of the point of air quotes is that the two fingers of each hand represent the two curved lines of the quotes.