cloven-hooved

A form of cloven-hoofed — Having the hoof divided into two parts, as the ox.

Meanings

adjectivecloven-hooved (not comparable)
  1. alternativenot comparableAlternative form of cloven-hoofed.

    Chevre pied. Cloven-hooved, Goat-footed; as Epithite for a Satyr.

    1673, James Howell, A French and English Dictionary, Composed by Mʳ Randle Cotgrave: with Another in English and French. Whereunto Are Added Sundry Animadversions, with Supplements of Many Hundreds of Words Never Before Printed; […], London: […] Anthony Dolle, […]
    4 more examples

    But “horses with uncloven hoof” suggests a cloven-hooved variety, which for a moment puzzles the wit, and therefore distracts.

    1905, W[illiam] H[enry] D[enham] Rouse, “Introduction”, in Matthew Arnold, On Translating Homer, London: John Murray, […], page 22

    But a few animals are known to be single-horned and single-hooved, as the Indian ass; and one, to wit the oryx, is single-horned and cloven-hooved.

    1910, Aristotle, translated by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, edited by J[ohn] A[lexander] Smith and W[illiam] D[avid] Ross, The Works of Aristotle, volume IV (Historia Animalium), Oxford, Oxon: At the Clarendon Press, page 499ᵇ

    This was the state executive’s formal answer to the preliminary injunction order issued on Monday by Circuit Judge Irwin at Elgin restraining the state from killing or contracting to kill any cloven-hooved animals afflicted or exposed to the epidemic.

    1915 January 13, “Governor Issues New Quarantine of Sick Cattle: […]”, in Waukegan Daily Sun, volume XVIII, number 10, Waukegan, Ill., page five, column 3

    The board has short legs in the shape of four cloven-hooved oxen’s feet.

    2017, Edwin M[asao] Yamauchi, Marvin R. Wilson, Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical & Post-Biblical Antiquity: Complete in One Volume, A-Z, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, →ISBN, page 755
Cite this entry
APA

cloven-hooved. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cloven-hooved

MLA

“cloven-hooved.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cloven-hooved. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cloven-hooved,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cloven-hooved.

Source: cloven-hooved on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.