hoof

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hof,^[2][3] inherited from Old English hōf,^[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *hōfaz.^[8][2][9] It is cognate with Old Frisian hōf and Old Saxon hōf, Dutch hoef, Old High German huof (modern Huf), and Old Norse hófr (hov, hov).^{[2][4][9][10]} Outside Germanic the sources compare Sanskrit शफ (śaphá, “hoof, claw”) and Avestan safa- (“horse's hoof”).^{[10][6][11][12]} Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *koHp-o- and explains the different order of sounds in the Indo-Iranian words by metathesis of the laryngeal.^[9] Etymonline mentions a root Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to beat, strike”) and Polish kopyto (“hoof”),^[8] but Kroonen holds the Slavic hoof words to be unrelated, formed from a verb meaning "to dig".^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The horny covering of the foot of a horse or similar animal: in the Old English Rune Poem, where the horse is "proud of its hoofs".^[4][7] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 1000 and the Middle English hof to before 1200.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In 1535 the Coverdale Bible used hoof for a single animal as the smallest unit of a herd.^[4] It was used of the cloven hoof of the Devil from 1638.^[4] The human foot was called a hoof jokingly or slightingly: Green's Dictionary of Slang finds it in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (about 1597), in the phrase on the hoof, on foot,^[13][4] and the verb to hoof it, to walk, appears in the 1640s.^[8][11][4] The phrase on the hoof was used of livestock still alive rather than slaughtered from 1818,^[4][14] and later of things done without thought or preparation, such as policy made on the hoof.^[14][4] American slang made hoof a verb for dancing in the 1920s, as in hoofer.^[8][4] In football, British colloquial use has the verb for kicking the ball hard but without skill since 1905, and the noun since 1985.^[4] In dialect a hoof could be hard skin on the hands,^[4] and the English Dialect Dictionary records compounds such as hoof-band, a rope tied round the legs of a kicking cow.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – the hoof of a horse or other animal.^[4][2]
• 1535 – an animal of a herd, counted by its hoof.^[4]
• c. 1597 – on the hoof, on foot, of a person.^[13][4]
• 1638 – the cloven hoof of the Devil.^[4]
• 1641 – verb, to walk, hoof it.^[11] The OED's first record is from 1652, and Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.^[4][8]
• 1818 – on the hoof, of livestock, alive.^[4][14]
• 1864 – verb, to strike with the hoof.^[4]
• 1893 – verb, to throw out, dismiss.^[4]
• 1925 – verb, to dance.^[4] Etymonline dates the sense to 1920.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hard horny covering of the foot of a horse, cow, deer or other ungulate animal; also the whole foot: The farrier trimmed the pony's hooves.^[16][11]
2. (informal, humorous) A person's foot.^[16][4]
3. on the hoof: of livestock, alive and not yet slaughtered; also, done without much thought or planning.^[16][4][14]

Verb

1. (informal) To walk, usually in hoof it: We missed the last bus and had to hoof it home.^[11][4]
2. (slang) To dance, especially on the stage.^[11][4]
3. To kick or trample; also, informally, to throw someone out, usually with out.^[11][4]
4. (chiefly British, informal) To kick a ball hard but without skill.^[4]

Word family

• hoofiness
• hoofless
• hooflike
• forehoof
• hoofbeat
• hoofbound
• hoofprint
• hoofer

Related words

• hoofed

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins