Definition of "hoove"

In her father’s pasture was a bull and when it stamped and hooved the ground and bellowed below the trees it was a preacher and now the Preacher was a bull.

1950s, Eric Nixon, “The Organ Blower”, in The Window, volume 9, London: Villiers Publications, page 16

They had left soft ridges where they had hooved the ground up with their snoots and baby hands.

1956, Jesse Stuart, The Year of My Rebirth, New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill BooK Company, Inc., page 112

[…] I didn’t find it, but came upon a cow moose blind, stinking with heat, moaning, and hooving the black peat with such blood, such fury, the woods broke open, the earth recovered her children, her silences, her poems.

1971, John Thompson, “The Change”, in The Fiddlehead, numbers 88–91, Fredericton, N.B.: University of New Brunswick, page 77

white heat red sunfired horses / tails swishing snakes / galloping / we were riders lion / headed hooving the hard ground / dust and cloud dragon and angel

1974, Helen Howe, “nashotah summer images to my sister”, in Nashotah Review, volumes 14–15, Nashotah, Wis.: Nashotah House, page 101

Cows, or something bigger, hoove the ground, pick at it, shovel up the dirt around my foot.

1988 spring, William Tester, “Darling”, in Gordon Lish, editor, The Quarterly, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, page 10

A spoonbill stalks its future with primaeval staggers: so, this is Grace? he wonders cutting twine from pulpy bails, the sheep congregating and snorting air that is sharp, shaking glimmers of an indolent sun from burr-bitten wool, hooving the ground.

1991, John Kinsella, “Checking The Sheep Two Mornings After The Glad Day”, in Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, volumes 35–36, Tulsa, Okla.: University of Tulsa, page 34

What I want is Montana at Gold Rush: fevered, muscled horses hooving the elevations rushing fortunes in ice streams, hearts pumped white to bursting, passion pressed as sweat and hair into the back, the ache ridden to powder, steel shattered, and rock.

1992, Linnea Johnson, “Montana”, in Puerto del Sol, number 2, Las Cruces, N.M.: New Mexico State University, page 151

The animals, wild-drunk on country wine, hooved the ground, lacking a quarry, which was soon provided for them—another pig, followed by a wild chase to kill it.

1996, Shaukat Osman, translated by Osman Jamal, God’s Adversary and Other Stories, New Delhi: Penguin Books, page 9

Each day I awake to hear them in my suburban hell, hooving the barn door, escaping through scented pastures with carefree defiance of the runaway!

1996, Dachine Rainer, “Remembering Us …”, in Wolfgang Görtschacher, Glyn Pursglove, editors, Summoning the Sea: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Prose: A Literary Festschrift for James Hogg, Salzburg: University of Salzburg, page 172

When I bugle a second time, appending some vulgar grunts to the end, all hell cuts loose, the bull screaming back his rage, hooving the ground and horning trees to create a cacophony of hollow knocks that echo eerily through the forest gloom.

1998, David Petersen, “Elkheart”, in Todd R. Berger, editor, Majestic Elk, Stillwater, Minn.: Voyageur Press, page 85, column 2

They, model loyal workers, were doing their daily tasks; Steve, helped by Rodríguez, was cooking and preparing breakfast and Miss Carrol was hooving the red elegant carpet that is around the house, from the main entrance to the attic, passing by the rooms on the second floor.

2011, Joan de Jesús Yánez Nuez, A Difficult Case for Detective Green, [Morrisville, N.C.: Lulu.com], pages 11–12

Across the yard, goats hooved the ground and rubbed their horns on the cedar posts of their fenced pen.

2011, Melissa Coleman, This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone, New York, N.Y.: Harper, page 46

The sign records that a young boy was killed by a deer at this particular spot with a rather graphic picture of the said beast hooving the poor kid on the head.

2013, Andrew Earnshaw, “Yosemite National Park – Fierce Creatures”, in Far Horizons: Across The Great Divide, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leics.: Matador, page 187

She ordered herself to declare, at least, what it was that frightened her on the other side of the flap. Was there a congress of rattlesnakes at the foot of her tent? A boar hooving the dust in anticipation of sinking a tusk into her flank?

2016, Boris Fishman, Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo, New York, N.Y.: Harper, page 231

He hooves the ground furiously. Kettlebell looks up at his rider. A winnie, and more hooving the ground.

2016, Molly L. Marita, “Horse Trainer”, in The Diverse, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, page 13

Beneath him, his steed hooved the ground and snorted impatiently.

2017, S.R. Betler, “The Wild Hunters”, in D.M. Kilgore, Lisa Shambrook, editors, Tales by the Tree: An Anthology of Holiday Flash Fiction, [Livonia, Mich.]: BHC Press

Heart in her throat, she stood frozen in place as the gelding hooved the ground, but finally it seemed to settle.

2021 May, Aaron Hodges, Dreams of Fury (Descendants of the Fall; 4), [Whakatāne: s.n.]

Bella stood and hooved the ground, moving hay around.

2022, Heather McGovern, chapter 11, in Something Blue, New York, N.Y.: Forever, Hachette Book Group