spoor

See also: Spoor

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Any dates and refs for this?”) From Afrikaans spoor, from Dutch spoor, akin to Old English and Old Norse spor (whence Danish spor), and German Spur, all from Proto-Germanic *spurą. Compare spurn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spʊə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /spʊɹ/, /spɔɹ/
• Rhymes: -ʊə, -ʊɹ, -ɔɹ

Noun

spoor (usually uncountable, plural spoors)

1. The track, trail, droppings or scent of an animal.
   • 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World‎^[1]:

     We all stopped to examine that monstrous spoor. If it were indeed a bird - and what animal could leave such a mark? - its foot was so much larger than an ostrich's that its height upon the same scale must be enormous.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter VIII

     Even poor Nobs appeared dejected as we quit the compound and set out upon the well-marked spoor of the abductor.

   • 1971, William S. Burroughs, The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead, page 10

     Now he has picked up the spoor of drunken vomit and there is the doll sprawled against a wall, his pants streaked with urine.

Translations

trail left by an animal

• Bulgarian: следа на диво животно (sleda na divo životno)
• German: Fußspur (de) f
• Hungarian: lábnyom (hu)
• Japanese: 臭跡 (shūseki)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Maori: makatea
• Plautdietsch: Spoa f
• Spanish: rastro (es)
• Swedish: spår (sv) n

Verb

spoor (third-person singular simple present spoors, present participle spooring, simple past and past participle spoored)

1. (transitive) To track an animal by following its spoor

Anagrams

• proso, roops, sopor, sporo-

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Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spoːr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: spoor
• Rhymes: -oːr

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch spor, from Old Dutch *spor, from Proto-Germanic *spurą, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-.

Noun

spoor n (plural sporen, diminutive spoortje n)

1. track
2. railway track
3. trace
4. spoor
5. lead, trail, clue

Derived terms

• smalspoor
• spoorbaan
• spoorloos
• spoorweg
• treinspoor
• voetspoor
• opsporen

Descendants

• Afrikaans: spoor
  • → English: spoor
• Jersey Dutch: spôr
• Negerhollands: spoor
• Petjo: sepoor
• → Caribbean Javanese: sepur
• → Indonesian: sepur (“railway track”)
• → Javanese: ꦱꦼꦥꦸꦂ (sepur)
  • → Indonesian: sepur (“train”) (semantic loan)
• → Papiamentu: spor

Etymology 2

From Middle Dutch spore, from Old Dutch *sporo from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-.

Noun

spoor f (plural sporen, diminutive spoortje n)

1. spur
2. spore

Derived terms

• sporen

Descendants

• → Papiamentu: spor, spoor

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Middle English

Noun

spoor

1. Alternative form of spore