hoof n.
1. the human foot.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Merry Wives of Windsor I iii: Trudge, plod away o’ the hoof; seeke shelter, packe. | |
| Belman of London B4: They [...] trauell upon the hard hoofe, from village to village for cheese and butter-milk. | |
| Laugh and Be Fat 3: I could make neerer proofes, / And not (like you) so farre to gall my hoofes. | |
| Scarronides 31: Quoth she, what serves the mat at door, But for to wipe your hoofes before You enter in. | |
| ‘The Potato Man’ in Musa Pedestris (1896) 55: A pair of large wedges on my hoofs, / And an oil skin round my hat. | |
| New Dict. Cant (1795). | |
| Dict. Sl. and Cant. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Real Life in Ireland 52: One, propelled by the sinnewy hoof of Brian Boru, fell. | |
| Sketches in London 213: He again put both his ugly hoofs on it. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 62: Like the rank sweaty hoofs, of a donna who drinks. | |
| Paved with Gold 382: The men were silent as ghosts [...] They ‘muffled the hoof’ with list slippers. | |
| Unsentimental Journeys 230: P’raps you’ll be so perlite as not to scrounge, and to take your hoofs off my toes. | |
| The Tailors’ Strike in Darkey Drama 5 34: dr. s.: Don’t you tink a man’s got feet! zip: I calls dem hoofs! | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: In reference to his feet [...] the loquacious fault-finder thinks he never saw such ‘hoofs,’ and asks if his friend did not have to hire a derrick to hoist his ‘flat-boats’ after they were once constructed. | |
| Moko Marionettes 4: Dat hoof awoke me! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 19 July 9/2: It is the girl with the great, flat, spodgy hoof who makes home happy and contented and clings to a fellow through good and evil fortune. | |
| Cape Girardeau Democrat (MO) 5 May 7/2: I looses my balance and goes hoofs over elbows, kerplunk! | |
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 16 June 1/1: A North Fremantle head of department put his hoof into things in Melbourne recently. | |
| Cincinnati Enquirer 18 May in Unforgettable Season (1981) 70: The Captain’s generous hoof, hot from its fast trip around the sacks. | |
| Harry The Cockney 247: I’ll hurt you, my son, if you don’t take your wet hoof off my sock! | |
| ‘Lord Ballyrot in Slangland’ in Tacoma Times (WA) 8 Jan. 4/4: I’ve only got two hoofs, you know and I hate to wear ’em out . | |
| Stealing Through Life 180: Stick yore hoof up here. | |
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 127: Here and there a door opens and a hand yanks him, or a hoof pushes him out. | |
| Halo in Blood (1988) 21: Now kind of take your goddam hoof to hell off my fender. | |
| Tarry Flynn (1965) 7: Mind you don’t put the big awkward hooves on one of them chickens that’s under you. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Maori Girl 99: Keep your hoofs to yourself or you’ll cop one smartly. | |
| Sneaky People (1980) 217: The whole hoof was red and puffy from its hours of confinement in a shoe one size too small. | |
| Blow Your House Down 113: Every time the poor old bitch tried to get out Gloria plants her hoof between the old girl’s tits and shoves her back again. | |
| Cartoon City 54: I was dancing earlier. I think someone reefed a lump out of my hoof. | |
| Hurricane Punch 9: ‘Watch your hooves.’ The reporter looked down. |
2. a shoe.
| Current Sl. IV:1. | |
| Campus Sl. Fall 3: hooves – shoes, boots. | |
| Chinese Girl (2001) 12: He took her purple DMs and put them in a Tesco carrier bag on the top shelf [...] She wouldn’t go far without her hooves. |
In compounds
(Aus.) a boot or shoe.
| Truth (Sydney) 6 Apr. 5/4: When Ada saw the mater stoushed; she picked up a boot and hurled it at Mary’s brain box. Strange to say, the ‘hoof gear’ got right home on the mark, but Mary wasn’t discouraged or scared by any means. |
In phrases
1. to walk.
| Familiar Letters (1737) I 1 May 39: The Secretary was put to beat the hoof himself, and foot it home. | |
| Eng. Rogue I 59: Beating the hoof we overtook a Cart. | |
| Saints in Uproar in Works (1760) I 78: We beat the hoofs as pilgrims. | |
| (trans.) Plautus’s Amphitryon I i: Well, I’ll beat it back upo’ the Hoof to my Lord. | |
| New Canting Dict. n.p.: Beat it on the hoof to walk on Foot. | |
| New General Eng. Dict. n.p.: To beat the Hoof To walk much up and down, to go a-foot. | |
| New General Eng. Dict. (4th edn). | |
| Author in Works (1799) I 127: He beats the hoof and you are set astride; / Sirrah! get down, and let your father ride. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| ‘Education’ in Attic Misc. 116: For Dick had beat the hoof upon the pad. | |
| ‘Subjects for Painters’ Works (1794) II 266: So social were we together, And beat the hoof in ev’ry weather. | |
| (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) III 241: There had I to beat the hoof so long, that I began to suspect our forward sprig of royalty had gone another way. | |
 | ‘The Baronet’s Yacht’ Horace in London 24: When hostile squadrons beat the hoof [F&H]. | |
| ‘Sonnets for the Fancy’ Boxiana III 622: [as 1791]. | |
| ‘Dick Hellfinch’ in Rummy Cove’s Delight in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 105: [as 1791]. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 36: Hoof, `beat the hoof,' to travel on foot. |
2. (NZ prison) to escape.
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 27: hoof v. To escape. |
(US) to dance, to go dancing.
| News-Chron. (Shippenberg, PA) 29 Oct. 4/3: Dragged a hoof myself last night. Had to take a spare tire. She surely is a flat . |
to walk without shoes.
| Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 168: Shallow fellows gad the hoof, and fence their cant of togs. | |
| Mysteries of London III 66/1: Tim put on the tats yesterday, and went out a durry-nakin on the shallows, gadding the hoof. | |
| Magistrate’s Assistant (3rd edn) 447: Going without shoes, gadding the hoof. | |
| gloss. in Occurence Book of York River Lockup in (1999) 38: I am gadding the hoof but quick, be a duffer now on the square. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Sl. Dict. (1890). | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 31: Gadding the Hoof, going without shoes. |
to be thrown out, either of a place or of one’s employment.
| Making of an Englishman I 95: If that’s the way they do it in Border I’m not surprised you got the hoof. | |
| Finnegans Wake (1959) 156: The loggerthuds of his sakellaries were fond at variance with the synodals of his somepooliom and his babskissed nepogreasymost got the hoof from his philioquus . |
1. in existence.
| Gangs of Chicago (2002) 54: Long John Wentworth — three hundred pounds on the hoof and six feet and seven inches in his socks. | |
| (con. 1950s) Valhalla 36: ‘Dollies on the hoof,’ Dallas grinned. | |
| You Flash Bastard 20: It’s when you have egos like Jack’s on the hoof that you get a breakdown in law and order. | |
| Christine 536: And Mrs Sykes, nearly three hundred pounds on the hoof in a faded housedress. | |
| Pugilist at Rest 229: She ain’t seen a real one on the hoof probably for some time. | |
| Turning Angel 285: As long as Cyrus White stays a mystery, he’s our aquittal on the hoof. |
2. passing by, casual.
| One-Way Ride 21: He bought his girls by the dozen – in load lots – on the hoof. | |
| letter 24 Sept. in Leader (2000) 579: The cabaret led off with the introduction of a pretty girl with just about the gig frig biggest tits I’ve ever seen on the hoof. | |
| Burn 104: I don’ wanna get married. I’ll catch mine on the hoof. | |
| Guardian Rev. 27 Nov. 8: He made it seem as if the poems were being written on the hoof, that he was thinking slightly uncertainly. | |
| Indep. Rev. 14 Jan. 1: A good impression of life caught on the hoof. |
see under shake v.
(US) to run off, to leave quickly.
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 84: He’s either full of truth serum or he escaped from some booby hatch — let’s take it on the hoof before he begins to rave. |
(Aus.) to commit oneself completely (if foolishly).
| Aus. Town & Country Jrnl 3 Oct. 19/1: A district in which I am certain of work has more than once caused me to throw hoofs after hide and ‘blue my last tanner’ on a ‘long-sleever’. |