woof
UK /wuːf/ · US /wʊf/ noun, verb, interjection
Forms woofs woofing woofed
- noun The set of yarns carried by the shuttle of a loom which are placed crosswise at right angles to and interlaced with the warp; the weft.
- noun (by extension) A woven fabric; also, the texture of a fabric.
- noun (by extension, loosely, chiefly poetic) The thread or yarn used to form the weft of woven fabric; the fill, the weft.
- noun (obsolete, rare) Synonym of weaving (“the process of making woven material on a loom”).
- noun Something which is interwoven with another thing.
- noun An underlying foundation or structure of something; a fabric.
- verb (weaving) To place (yarns) crosswise at right angles to and interlaced with the warp in a loom.
- verb (figurative) To interweave (something) with another thing; to weave (several things) together.
- interjection Used to indicate the sound of a dog barking, or something resembling it.
- interjection (humorous) Used to express strong physical attraction for someone.
- noun The sound a dog makes when barking; a bark.
- noun (by extension) A sound resembling a dog's bark.
- noun (sound engineering) A low-frequency sound of bad quality produced by a loudspeaker.
- verb (African-American Vernacular, figurative) To say (something) in an aggressive or boastful manner.
- verb (originally UK, Royal Air Force slang, informal) To eat (food) voraciously; to devour, to gobble, to wolf.
- verb Of a dog: to bark.
- verb Of a person or thing: to make a sound resembling a dog's bark.
- verb (African-American Vernacular, figurative) To speak in an aggressive or boastful manner.
- interjection Oof.
- interjection Phew.
Synonyms
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English wof, oof, owf (“threads in a piece of woven fabric at right angles to the warp, weft, woof; also sometimes the warp; transverse filaments of a spider web”) [and other forms] (the forms beginning with w were influenced by warp and weft), from Old English ōwef, āwef, from ō-, ā- (prefix meaning ‘away; from; off; out’) + *wef (“web”) (only attested in the form gewef (“woof”); from wefan (“to weave”), from Proto-West Germanic *weban (“to weave”), from Proto-Germanic *webaną (“to weave”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid; to weave”)).
The verb is derived from the noun.
The interjection and noun are onomatopoeic. Interjection etymology 2, interjection sense 2 (“used to express strong physical attraction for someone”) probably alludes to the eager barking of a dog.
The verb is probably derived from the interjection and the noun. Verb etymology 2, verb sense 1.2 (“to eat (food) voraciously”) may be influenced by or, alternatively, derived from wolf (“to eat (food) voraciously, devour, gobble”).
Onomatopoeic.
From WWOOF, an acronym of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms which is a network of national organizations that facilitate homestays on organic farms.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The threads that cross the warp in a woven fabric; the weft; the filling; the thread usually carried by the shuttle in weaving.
- noun Texture; cloth; as, a pall of softest woof. Pope.
Etymology [OE. oof, AS. , , aweb; on, an, on + wef, web, fr. wefan to weave. The initial w is due to the influence of E. weave. See On, Weave, and cf. Abb.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “woof”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details