Word.ws English Dictionary

hooves

/hʊvz/

hooves is the plural of hoof.

hooves is the third-person singular simple present indicative of hoove.

Meaning of hoof

Noun

hoof (plural hooves or hoofs)

  1. 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
  2. (derogatory, slang) The human foot.
    • Get your hooves off me!
  3. (dated) An ungula.
  4. The heel of a loaf of bread.

See all 8 meanings of hoof

Meaning of hoove

Noun

hoove (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) A disease in cattle consisting of inflammation of the rumen by gas, usually caused by eating too much green food.
    Synonyms:
    bloat, bloating, drum belly, meteorism, ruminal bloat, ruminal tympany, ruminal tympanitis, tympanites, tympany, wind dropsy

Forms of hooves

alternative formhoofs

Phrases with hooves

Questions about hooves

What is hooves the plural of?
Hooves is the plural of hoof.
How do you pronounce hooves?
Hooves is pronounced /hʊvz/.

Words near hooves in the dictionary

  1. Hoovernomics
  2. hoovers
  3. hoovers up
  4. Hooverville
  5. Hoovervilles
  6. hooves
  7. hooving
  8. hoowee
  9. hooyah
  10. hop
  11. hop a freight

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hooves (page history and authors); hoof (page history and authors); hoove (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-hooves.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hooves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hooves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.