Calf

How to spell calf

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce calf

What does calf mean?

1. nounA young cow or bull, and by extension the young of some other large mammals such as elephants and whales.
2. nounThe fleshy muscular part at the back of the human lower leg, below the knee.

Calf in a sentence

• The farmer fed the newborn calf from a bottle.

• A sudden cramp seized his calf during the long run.

• A young elephant calf stayed close to its mother at the watering hole.

• The physiotherapist massaged the tight muscle in her left calf.

Where does calf come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word splits into two histories that happen to share a spelling. The animal sense comes straight from Old English 'cealf', a thoroughly Germanic word with relatives across the old Germanic languages, all describing the young of cattle. The body-part sense, the fleshy back of the lower leg, was borrowed later from Old Norse 'kalfi', brought into English by Scandinavian settlers, and the two senses simply merged into one modern spelling. In both cases the 'l' was once pronounced but fell silent over centuries, much as it did in 'half', 'palm' and 'walk', which is exactly the trap for the modern speller: you hear 'caaf' but must still write the unspoken 'l'. The plural shifts to 'calves', swapping the 'f' for 'v', a pattern shared with 'half' and 'leaf'. Keeping 'half' in mind is a useful memory hook, since both words hide the same silent letter.

How the word is built

• calf (single root noun; Old English cealf for the young animal, with a silent 'l' before 'f')