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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hoof.

The tip of a toe of an ungulate such as a horse, ox or deer, strengthened by a thick keratin covering.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hʊf/US/huːf/US

  1. The tip of a toe of an ungulate such as a horse, ox or deer, strengthened by a thick keratin covering.

  2. The human foot.

    derogatory · slang
    Get your hooves off me!

  3. An ungula.

    dated

  4. The heel of a loaf of bread.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱoph₂ós Proto-Germanic *hōfaz Proto-West Germanic *hōf Old English hōf Middle English hof English 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).

verb/hʊf/US/huːf/US

  1. To trample with hooves.

  2. To walk.

    colloquial

  3. To dance, especially as a professional.

    informal

  4. To kick, especially to kick a football a long way downfield with little accuracy.

    colloquial · transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱoph₂ós Proto-Germanic *hōfaz Proto-West Germanic *hōf Old English hōf Middle English hof English 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).

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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.