Hoof

//hʊf// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 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."

  2. 2
    the foot of an ungulate mammal wordnet
  3. 3
    The human foot. derogatory, slang

    "Get your hooves off me!"

  4. 4
    the horny covering of the end of the foot in ungulate mammals wordnet
  5. 5
    An ungula. dated
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  1. 6
    The heel of a loaf of bread.
Verb
  1. 1
    To trample with hooves.
  2. 2
    dance in a professional capacity wordnet
  3. 3
    To walk. colloquial
  4. 4
    walk wordnet
  5. 5
    To dance, especially as a professional. informal
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  1. 6
    To kick, especially to kick a football a long way downfield with little accuracy. colloquial, transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
footambulateanklearchbootboot

Example

More examples

"I am so exhausted because I have padded the hoof for 4 hours."

Etymology

From Middle English hoof, hof, 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).

Related phrases

ale-hoofbeat the hoofbeef on the hoofbeef to the hoofcloven hoofempty-hoofedhoof fungushoof ithoof outhoof pickhoof-and-mouth diseasehoof-mark

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.