Etymology

hoof

H4O1O1F4

Today it means: The tip of a toe of an ungulate such as a horse, ox or deer, strengthened by a thick keratin covering. Full definition →

Middle English hof ← Old English hōf ← Proto-West Germanic *hōf
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱoph₂ós
  2. Proto-Germanic*hōfaz
  3. Proto-West Germanic*hōf
  4. Old Englishhōf
  5. Middle Englishhof
  6. English todayhoof

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).

Words from the same roots

Old Englishhōf all →

hof

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.