Plural Of Roof And Hoof

This is exactly how hooves is obtained as the first plural of the noun.

Plural of roof and hoof.

The plural form of hoof is hoofs or hooves. Dwarf dwarves elf elves hoof hooves roof rooves. But hooves woke up in the 20th century and by about 1970 it overtook hoofs in usage and that s where it has stayed. It wasn t until the last 40 50 years that hooves began to pick up steam.

Hoof for instance becomes hooves in the plural. Poof and poofs follow the same rule. And just like roof hoofs was the dominant one. Hoofs is also a plural form of hoof the horny part of an animal s foot.

The plural of hof is hofas which when pronounced would have sounded like hooves. When to use hooves hooves is the newer and now more common plural form of the hoof. Should it become rooves like hooves. Not all nouns follow simple rules when transitioning from single to plural form.

Hoof comes from the old english word hof. Hoofs is a much older rendering of the plural form of hoof. Maybe my teachers were wrong. English pluralization can be complicated.

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. When at school i was taught that the plural of roof is rooves and the plural of hoof is hooves. On the other hand spoof simply adds the plural s suffix to become spoofs. But at the same time there are several exceptions form this rule.

Just like roof hoof also started with two plural forms hoofs and hooves. And this is how you get hoofs.