cauf

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English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From corf (basket) (which is a homophone of cauf in some dialects).

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Noun[edit]

cauf (plural cauves)

  1. A chest with holes for keeping fish alive in water.
    • 1926: Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses, Reports, volume 2, unknown page (Executive Committee)
      The live fish is now kept in the cauves until sold for consumption in the home-country or abroad.
References[edit]
  • Glossographia; or, A Dictionary Interpreting the Hard Words of Whatsoever Language, Now Used in Our Refined English Tongue, by Thomas Blount (1662?; in 1670 Ed.)
    Cauf, a little trunk or chest with holes in it, wherein Fishermen keep Fish alive in the water, ready for use.
  • †cauf” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]

Etymology 2[edit]

Phonetic respelling.

Noun[edit]

cauf (plural cauves)

  1. Pronunciation spelling of calf.
    • 1845, Charles Rogers, Tom Treddlehoyle’s Thowts, Joakes, an Smiles for Midsummer Day, pages 40–41:
      An estimate at traffick hez been made be sum foaks, at wor set ta tack noatis, an it appear’d, bit average a wun month, thear wor enter’d Pogmoor an Hickam, fifteen wheelbarras, nine turnap rowlers, eighteen cauves, six sither grinders, wun wattar barril, nine haulin-horses, two pol’d cahs, three pair a cuts, wun hearse, sixteen dogs, three sheep, fourteen coil-carts, thurty mules, twenty-five geese, an three pigs.
References[edit]
  • Publications of the English Dialect Society, volume 52 (1886), page 26
    CAUF, CAUVES. — Common pronunciation of Calf, Calves: as “I’d been to serve the cauves;” “She’s gotten a quee cauf[.]”

Scots[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English calf (young cow), from Old English cealf, from Proto-Germanic *kalbaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷolbʰo (womb, animal young).

Alternative forms[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cauf (plural caur)

  1. calf (young cow)
References[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle English calf (area behind the shin), from Old Norse kalfi.

Alternative forms[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cauf (plural cauves)

  1. (rare) calf (area behind the shin)
References[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From Middle English caf, caff, kaf, kaff, alternative forms of chaf.

Noun[edit]

cauf

  1. Alternative form of caff