on the hoof
- idiom
- Informal
:
sobre la marcha
- She ate 'on the hoof,' grabbing coffee and croissants for breakfast at the station, snacking throughout the day, and then having a restaurant meal or a takeaway in the evening.
Examples
-
Tony Visconti recently talked about Bowie's unnerving habit of coming into the studio with mere sketches for songs and finishing them on the hoof.
Blog text (22) -
In the Civil War, Jake Summerlin sold cattle on the hoof.
Fiction book (1990) -
It was thought up on the hoof without proper organizational thought.
-
She often makes decisions on the hoof while managing several projects at once.
-
During the busy conference, he wrote his speech on the hoof before stepping onto the stage.
-
They completed the report on the hoof while juggling other tasks throughout the day.
Synonyms
14
5.3
Quickly while you do something, without planning
Antonyms
How Careful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally combines 'on' + 'the' + 'hoof' so a learner who knows 'hoof' (being on foot or moving) can plausibly infer a meaning related to being 'on the move' or doing something while moving. However, the extended sense 'done quickly or without careful planning' is a pragmatic/metaphorical shift and 'hoof' is relatively low-frequency, so the full idiomatic nuance is not fully predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
On the hoof may come from old markets where animals were sold still standing 'on the hoof' rather than already cut into meat. The picture of something happening while the animal is still on its feet makes a clear memory hook, so on the hoof came to mean 'while in motion or busy', doing things quickly without careful planning.