Calf
[kɑːf] or [kæf]
Definition
(noun.) young of domestic cattle.
(noun.) young of various large placental mammals e.g. whale or giraffe or elephant or buffalo.
(noun.) the muscular back part of the shank.
(noun.) fine leather from the skin of a calf.
Checked by Cathy--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) The young of the cow, or of the Bovine family of quadrupeds. Also, the young of some other mammals, as of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and whale.
(n.) Leather made of the skin of the calf; especially, a fine, light-colored leather used in bookbinding; as, to bind books in calf.
(n.) An awkward or silly boy or young man; any silly person; a dolt.
(n.) A small island near a larger; as, the Calf of Man.
(n.) A small mass of ice set free from the submerged part of a glacier or berg, and rising to the surface.
(n.) The fleshy hinder part of the leg below the knee.
Checker: Olga
Definition
as marine mammals: calf-skin leather bookbinding in such: a stupid or a cowardly person:—pl. Calvesns. Calf′-love an attachment between a boy and girl; Calf's′-foot Calves'-foot the foot of the calf used in making a palatable jelly; Calf′-skin the skin of the calf making a good leather for bookbinding and shoes.—Divinity calf a dark-brown calf bookbinding with blind stamping and without gilding—common in the binding of theological books; Golden calf the idol set up by Aaron during the absence of Moses on Sinai or those erected by Jeroboam at Bethel and Dan: worship of Mammon or wealth; Half-calf a bookbinding in which the back and corners are in calf-skin; Mottled calf a light coloured bookbinding decorated by the sprinkling of acid in drops; Smooth calf a binding in plain or undecorated calf leather.—The calves of our lips (Hosea xiv. 2) an offering of praise (the Septuagint reads 'The fruit of our lips').—Tree calf a bright brown calf bookbinding stained by acids with a pattern resembling the trunk and branches of a tree.
with a thin poor calf.
Checker: Quincy
Examples
- Calf-worship was never more idolatrous than this. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- It was a giant dog, as large as a calf, tawny tinted, with hanging jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting bones. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
- I have no less than two hundred volumes in calf, and I flatter myself they are well selected. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- I do wonder if any of us will ever get our wishes, said Laurie, chewing grass like a meditative calf. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- A light bookcase contained duodecimo volumes of polite literature in calf, completing the furniture. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- Now they were crusted and the knee was swollen and discolored and the calf sunken but there was no pus. Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell To Arms.
- Sordo was wounded in the calf of his leg and in two places in his left arm. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- And he, Loerke, had understanding where Gerald was a calf. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the calves of his legs in the pause he made. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- He bites footmen's calves. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- That of calves skins, on the contrary, is greatly below it. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Parchment manufactured from the skins of young calves, kids, lambs, sheep, and goats, was an early rival of papyrus, and was known and used in Europe before papyrus was there introduced. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- There are perhaps some little calves, some little new-yeaned lambs--it may be twins, whose mothers have rejected them. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
Typed by Jaime