Hough
/hʌf/noun
A cut or tendon at the back of the hock of a horse or other animal, or the act of disabling an animal by severing it there.
Did you know?In Scots and older English, houghing was a deliberate act of disabling livestock or horses, and the word is tied to a Germanic root for the back of the leg, not to the unrelated verb “hough” meaning to clear land.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*hauhaz / *hōh-
“heel, back of the leg, hock”
Old English
OE
hōh
“heel, hock, back part of the foot or leg”
Middle English
ME
houghe, hough
“the hock or ham of an animal; to disable by cutting the hock”
Scots / Early Modern English
Scots/Eng
hough
“to hamstring, cripple, or disable an animal by cutting the tendon behind the knee”
Modern English
English
hough
“the hock of an animal; chiefly historical or dialectal, to hamstring”