spoor

Early 19th century, from Afrikaans spoor, from Dutch spoor (“track”).[1]

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

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

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

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

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, II, or 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.

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

• proso, roops, sopor, sporo-

• IPA^(key): /spoːr/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: spoor
• Rhymes: -oːr

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

spoor n (plural sporen, diminutive spoortje n)

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

• 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

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”).

spoor f (plural sporen, diminutive spoortje n)

1. spur (multiple senses)
2. spore

• → Papiamentu: spor, spoor

spoor

1. Alternative form of spore