Plural Of Roof And Hoof

On the other hand spoof simply adds the plural s suffix to become spoofs.

Plural of roof and hoof.

Dwarf dwarves elf elves hoof hooves roof rooves. Not all nouns follow simple rules when transitioning from single to plural form. For a good 250 years hoofs was the primary plural form of hoof analogized with the word roof which has roofs as a plural form. Hoof comes from the old english word hof.

And just like roof hoofs was the dominant one. For example roof chef and others these do not apply the previous rule but simply add the s normally at the end of the word after f in order to obtain the plural form. This is exactly how hooves is obtained as the first plural of the noun. But at the same time there are several exceptions form this rule.

Hoof for instance becomes hooves in the plural. When at school i was taught that the plural of roof is rooves and the plural of hoof is hooves. Poof and poofs follow the same rule. Just like roof hoof also started with two plural forms hoofs and hooves.

Hoofs is also a plural form of hoof the horny part of an animal s foot. Hoofs is a much older rendering of the plural form of hoof. Maybe my teachers were wrong. When to use hooves hooves is the newer and now more common plural form of the hoof.

And this is how you get hoofs. Should it become rooves like hooves. The plural of hof is hofas which when pronounced would have sounded like hooves. It wasn t until the last 40 50 years that hooves began to pick up steam.

I was taught rooves in grade school on the east coast. But hooves woke up in the 20th century and by about 1970 it overtook hoofs in usage and that s where it has stayed.