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hoof pick

hoof pick

1 7.9
A small hooked tool to clean mud and stones from a horse's hoof
  • noun
  • /huf pɪk/
translation icon : raspador de pezuñas
  • She always behaved when someone cleaned her hooves with a hoof pick.

Examples

  • "She set the dandy brush aside and took up a hoof pick."

    Fiction book (1995)
  • Mike was cleaning around the horse's frog with a hoof pick, and the big bay horse was nervously whisking his black tail back and forth in Mike's face.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • The farrier cleaned the horse's hooves carefully with a hoof pick to remove any dirt and debris.

  • After riding, she used a hoof pick to ensure her horse's hooves were free from mud.

  • He always kept a hoof pick in his grooming kit to maintain his horses' health.

How Thorough

hoof pick
1 7.9

Surface Forms

hoof pick singular
hoof picks plural

Morphology

hoof + pick

The meaning 'a tool for cleaning a horse's hooves' is directly and compositionally derived from 'hoof' (the foot covering of an ungulate) + 'pick' (a slender, pointed scraping/cleaning instrument). This follows standard English noun-compounding patterns and is not idiomatic, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would reasonably infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The noun hoof pick is a small hooked tool used to pull stones and mud out of a horse's hoof. The word pick here means 'to pull out' or 'remove', so the name simply describes the tool's job.