calf.
A young cow or bull of any bovid, such as domestic cattle or buffalo.
Meaning & usage
A young cow or bull of any bovid, such as domestic cattle or buffalo.
Leather made of the skin of domestic calves; especially, a fine, light-coloured leather used in bookbinding.
The young of various animals, especially elephant, giraffe, reindeer, seal, or whale (also indiscriminately used of other animals).
A mass of ice broken from a larger glacier, ice shelf, or iceberg.
A small island, near a larger island.
A cabless railroad engine.
An awkward or silly boy or young man; any silly person; a dolt.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English calf, from Anglian Old English cælf, calf (West Saxon ċealf), from Proto-West Germanic *kalb, from Proto-Germanic *kalbaz, further etymology unknown. Cognates * Scots caff (“calf”) * Scots calf (“calf”) * Scots cauf (“calf”) * Scots cawf (“calf”) * North Frisian Kualev (“calf”) * North Frisian kualew (“calf”) * North Frisian kuulew (“calf”) * Saterland Frisian Koolich (“calf”) * West Frisian keal (“calf”) * German Kalb (“calf”) * Luxembourgish Kallef (“calf”) * Limburgish kalf (“calf”) * Dutch kalf (“calf”) * Vilamovian kołb (“calf”) * Vilamovian kołp (“calf”) * Faroese kálvur (“calf”) * Icelandic kálfur (“calf”) * Danish kalv (“calf”) * Norwegian Bokmål kalv (“calf”) * Norwegian Nynorsk kalv (“calf”) * Swedish kalv (“calf”)
The back of the leg below the knee.
The muscle in the back of the leg below the knee.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English calf, kalf, from Old Norse kalfi, possibly derived from the same Germanic root as English calf (“young cow”) (above). Cognate with Icelandic kálfi (“calf of the leg”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.