spoor

See also: Spoor

English

Etymology

Early 19th century, from Afrikaans spoor, from Dutch spoor (“track”).

Akin to Old English and Old Norse spor (whence Danish spor), and German Spur, all from Proto-Germanic *spurą. Compare spurn.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /spʊə/, /spɔː/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /spʊɹ/, /spɔɹ/
• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /spʉːɹ/
• (Ireland) IPA^(key): /spuːɹ/
• Rhymes: -ʊə(ɹ)
• Homophone: spore (in some accents)

Noun

spoor (usually uncountable, plural spoors)

1. The track, trail, droppings or scent of an animal.
   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     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 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 5, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN:

     From the spoor, skilled trackers can deduce an individual's age, sex, physical condition, speed, and fatigue level, as well as the time of day it passed by.

Translations

trail left by an animal

• Afrikaans: spoor
• Bulgarian: следа на диво животно (sleda na divo životno)
• Czech: stopa (cs) f, stopy f pl, otisky m pl
• German: Fußspur (de) f
• Hungarian: lábnyom (hu)
• Japanese: 臭跡 (shūseki)
• Maori: makatea
• Plautdietsch: Spoa f
• Polish: trop (pl) m
• 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-

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

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

 

Descendants

• Afrikaans: spoor
  • → English: spoor
  • → Fanagalo: spor
  • → Zulu: sipolo
• 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 *spora, variant of *sporo, from Proto-West Germanic *spurō, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick”).

Noun

spoor f (plural sporen, diminutive spoortje n)

1. spur (multiple senses)
2. spore

Derived terms

• spoorbloem
• sporen
• sporendoos
• sporenhoop
• sporenkievit
• sporenplant

 

Descendants

• → Papiamentu: spor, spoor

Middle English

Noun

spoor

1. Alternative form of spore