Word.ws English Dictionary

hough

UK/hɒk//hɑk/

hough is the alternative form of hock.

hough is the obsolete spelling of hoe.

hough is the archaic spelling of hoe.

hough is the alternative form of hoe.

Meaning of hock

Noun (1)

hock (countable and uncountable, plural hocks)

  1. A Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still, from the Hochheim region; often applied to all Rhenish wines.
    • That night he strolled into the Palette Club about eleven o’clock, and found Trevor sitting by himself in the smoking-room drinking hock and seltzer.1891 [1887], Oscar Wilde, “The Model Millionaire”, in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
    Synonyms:
    Hochheimer

Noun (2)

hock (countable and uncountable, plural hocks)

  1. (countable) The tarsal joint of a digitigrade quadruped, such as a horse, pig or dog.
    • Anyway, you only have one golden retriever, SWORDDOG, and she is already armed to the hocks.2013, Kazerad, Gaius: Recap goals, in: Prequel -or- Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure (webcomic), February 06 2013
  2. Meat from that part of a food animal.
  3. (countable) The hollow behind the knee.

Noun (3)

hock (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Pawn, obligation as collateral for a loan.
    • He needed $750 to get his guitar out of hock at the pawnshop.
  2. (informal) Debt.
    • They were in hock to the bank for $35 million.

See all 13 meanings of hock

Meaning of hoe

Noun (1)

hoe (plural hoes)

  1. (when not otherwise specified) An agricultural and horticultural hand tool consisting of a long handle with a flat blade fixed perpendicular to it at the end, used for digging rows or removing weeds by hand.
    • For their organic row crops, they do the weeding with hoes. They get in there often, but it goes fast, and the weeds never get ahead.
    Synonyms:
    hand hoe
  2. Any of several implements or machines usually called by their more specific names, for example, backhoe.
    • The grading is on hold. In the meantime, get that hoe over here and work on this utility trench. [Instructions issued to a worker who will operate a backhoe]

Noun (2)

hoe (plural hoes)

  1. A piece of land that juts out towards the sea; a promontory.

Noun (3)

hoe (plural hoes)

  1. (Orkney, Shetland) The horned or piked dogfish, Squalus acanthias.

See all 8 meanings of hoe

Proper noun capitalized: Hough

UK/hʌf/Australia/hɐf/

Hough

  1. A surname.
  2. A village and former civil parish, now in Hough and Chorlton parish, south of Crewe, Cheshire East district, Cheshire, England (OS grid ref SJ7150).
  3. A hamlet in Alderley Edge parish, Cheshire East district, Cheshire (OS grid ref SJ8578).
  4. A settlement on the island of Tiree, Argyll and Bute council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NL9545).
  5. A neighbourhood of Cleveland, Ohio, United States.
  6. An unincorporated community in Texas County, Oklahoma, United States.

Synonyms of hough

Forms of hough

Noun
pluralhoughs
Verb
third-person singular presenthoughs
present participlehoughing
past participlehoughed
pasthoughed

Origin of hough

From Middle English hough, houȝ, hoch, howghe, from Old English hōh (“heel, hough”), from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄h, from Proto-Germanic *hanhaz (“heel”). Doublet of hoo. The regular modern English development would be /hʌf/, /haʊ/; this has been replaced by /hɒk/, originating in the compound huxen (also *hoxen), from Old English hōhsinu.

See hoe (“agricultural tool”).

From Middle English ho, howe, hogh, from Old English hōh (“a promontory”).

Words formed from hough

Phrases with hough

Words that rhyme with hough

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hough

What does hough mean?
Hough means a surname.
What is hough the alternative form of?
Hough is the alternative form of hock.
What part of speech is hough?
Hough is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hough?
Hough is pronounced /hɒk/ (UK).

Words near hough in the dictionary

  1. Houffs
  2. Hougasian
  3. Hougasians
  4. Houge
  5. Houges
  6. hough
  7. Hough and Chorlton
  8. Hough Green
  9. Hough transform
  10. Hough transforms
  11. Hough-on-the-Hill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hough (page history and authors); Hough (page history and authors); hock (page history and authors); hoe (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-huff.ogg.

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