Moo

How to spell moo

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce moo

What does moo mean?

1. verbTo make the deep, drawn-out vocal sound characteristic of a cow.
2. nounThe deep, lowing sound made by a cow.

Moo in a sentence

• verb

  The dairy cows tend to moo loudly at feeding time.

• noun

  A low moo drifted across the farmyard at dawn.

• verb

  A single calf will often moo for its mother across the field.

• noun

  The children imitated the long moo of the cattle in the barn.

Where does moo come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Moo is an onomatopoeic word, meaning it was coined to imitate the deep, drawn-out call that a cow actually makes. English has used it in this form since around the sixteenth century, and it belongs to a family of similar imitative animal-noise words such as 'baa' for sheep and 'cluck' for hens. Because it simply copies a sound, it has no Latin or Greek root behind it; the doubled 'o' was chosen by writers to stretch out the long, lowing vowel on the page. Earlier English also used the related word 'low' (as in 'the cattle are lowing') for the same noise, but moo became the popular, plain-spoken term. Its spelling has stayed remarkably stable precisely because it is built to echo the sound itself.

How the word is built

• moo (imitative root mimicking the low call of a cow; no prefix or suffix)