hoe.
Any of various tools for scraping, scratching, digging, or stirring soil or other materials.
Meaning & usage
Any of various tools for scraping, scratching, digging, or stirring soil or other materials. 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.
Any of various tools for scraping, scratching, digging, or stirring soil or other materials. 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]
Where this word comes from
From Middle English howe, from Anglo-Norman houe, from Frankish *hauwā, derivative of Frankish *hauwan (“to hew”), from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną. More at hew.
To cut, dig, scrape, turn, arrange, or clean, with this tool.
to hoe the earth in a garden
Every year, I hoe my garden for aeration.
To clear from weeds, or to loosen or arrange the earth about, with a hoe.
to hoe corn
Where this word comes from
From Middle English howe, from Anglo-Norman houe, from Frankish *hauwā, derivative of Frankish *hauwan (“to hew”), from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną. More at hew.
A piece of land that juts out towards the sea; a promontory.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English hough, hogh, from Old English hōh.
The horned or piked dogfish, Squalus acanthias.
Where this word comes from
Cognate with Dutch haai (“shark”), qv.
Alternative spelling of ho (“whore, prostitute”).
Where this word comes from
From a non-rhotic pronunciation of whore.
Alternative spelling of ho (“to prostitute”).
Where this word comes from
From a non-rhotic pronunciation of whore.
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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.