on the hoof
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
done or taken while moving or in progress
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Được thực hiện hoặc thực hiện trong khi di chuyển hoặc đang tiến hành
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: on the hoof of an animal
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Having taken advantage of 100pc relief he claims they not only bought tackle which ‘ has mainly stood idle ever since’ but did so with borrowed money on which they are still paying interest 10 years on.
All their worries would be forgotten.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “on the hoof” mean?
done or taken while moving or in progress Literally: on the hoof of an animal
Is “on the hoof” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.