hoof
/hʊf/
hoof noun: the tip of a toe of an ungulate such as a horse, ox or deer, strengthened by a thick keratin covering.
Noun
- The tip of a toe of an ungulate such as a horse, ox or deer, strengthened by a thick keratin covering.
- […] I ſee
Th’ Inſulting Tyrant prancing o’er the Field
Strow’d with Rome’s Citizens, and drench’d in Slaughter,
His Horſe’s Hoofs wet with Patrician Blood.1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 2
- […] I ſee
- The human foot.
- Get your hooves off me!
- He is a huge man, six feet four on bare hoofs and composed of two hundred and seventy pounds of solid bone and muscle.1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 110
- An ungula.
- The heel of a loaf of bread.
Verb
hoof (third-person singular simple present hoofs, present participle hoofing, simple past and past participle hoofed)
- To trample with hooves.
- To walk.
- To dance, especially as a professional.
- To kick, especially to kick a football a long way downfield with little accuracy.
- More minutes drifted by. Pierrot had another chance - and missed. At one point the ball fell to Andy Robertson and instead of taking his time and clearing, he hoofed it away as if his life depended on it. His football life, for sure.2026 June 14, Tom English, “Why Haiti v Scotland was antidote to the ills of world football”, in BBC Sport
- Synonyms:
- boot
hoof meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
hoof in Hindi
- tip of a toe of ungulates
- खुर khur
hoof in Tamil
- tip of a toe of ungulates
- குளம்பு kuḷampu
hoof in Urdu
- tip of a toe of ungulates
- کُھر khur
hoof in Bengali
- tip of a toe of ungulates
- খুর khur
More languagesFewer languages
- hoof in Telugu
- గిట్ట giṭṭa
- hoof in Malayalam
- കുളമ്പ് kuḷampŭ
- hoof in Kannada
- ಕಾಲ್ಗೊರಸು, ಖುರ, ಕೊಳಗ, ಗೊರಸು
- hoof in Punjabi
- ਪੌੜ pauṛ
- hoof in Sanskrit
- शफ śapha
- hoof in Sinhala
- කුර kura
- hoof in Assamese
- খুৰা khura
- hoof in Pashto
- سوه swa, څوه cwa
- hoof in Arabic
- حافِر ḥāfir, ظِلْف ẓilf, خُفّ ḵuff
- hoof in Malay
- telapuk
- hoof in Indonesian
- kuku
- hoof in Thai
- กีบ gìip
- hoof in Vietnamese
- guốc, móng
- hoof in Myanmar
- ခွာ hkwa
Examples of hoof in a sentence
- Deer spring with their hind legs, using their front hooves to steady themselves.
- Smith hoofs a long ball up to Jones.
- Even a moment’s hesitation could be punished by a swift but painful death beneath the bicorns’ hooves.
Synonyms of hoof
Forms of hoof
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | hooves |
| plural | hoofs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | hoofs |
| present participle | hoofing |
| past participle | hoofed |
| past | hoofed |
| alternative form | hoove |
Origin of hoof
Inherited from Middle English hof, houf, houve, hove, from Old English hōf, from Proto-Germanic *hōfaz (compare West Frisian hoef, Dutch hoef, German Huf, Danish hov, Norwegian hov, Swedish hov), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱoph₂ós (compare Sanskrit शफ (śaphá, “hoof, claw”), Avestan 𐬯𐬀𐬟𐬀 (safa, “hoof”), possibly Czech, Polish kopyto).
Words formed from hoof
- ale-hoof
- beat the hoof
- beef on the hoof
- beef to the hoof
- brohoof
- cloven hoof
- empty-hoofed
- facehoof
- forehoof
- hoof-and-mouth disease
- hoofball
- hoofbeat
- hoofbound
- hoof fungus
- hoofish
- hoofless
- hooflet
- hooflike
- hoof-mark
- hoofmark
- hoofology
- hoof pick
- hoofprint
- hoofrot
- hoofstep
- hoofstock
- hoofy
- hooved
- horsehoof
- horse's hoof
- hot-hoof
- iron hoof
- on the hoof
- pad the hoof
- show the cloven hoof
- steak on the hoof
- underhoof
- unhoof
- hoofer
- hoof it
- hoof out
Phrases with hoof
Words that rhyme with hoof
Questions about hoof
- What does hoof mean?
- Hoof means the tip of a toe of an ungulate such as a horse, ox or deer, strengthened by a thick keratin covering.
- What is hoof in Hindi?
- Hoof in Hindi is खुर (khur). See Hoof meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is hoof?
- Hoof can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce hoof?
- Hoof is pronounced /hʊf/ (US).
- What is the plural of hoof?
- The plural of hoof is hooves.
Words near hoof in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hoof (page history and authors); hoof (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਪੌੜ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); খুৰা (Assamese) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-hoof.ogg.
Cite this entry: “hoof.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hoof. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.