‘A projecting ridge of land, a promontory’ (Sweet); ‘originally a point of land, formed like a heel, and stretching into the plain, perhaps even into the sea’ (Kemble); a height enduring abruptly or steeply: cf. heugh n. Now only in the names of particular places, as The Hoe at Plymouth, The Hooe near Chipping Camden, Hoo in Kent, Bedfordshire, etc.; and frequent as a second element in place-names, as Martinhoe, Morthoe, Pinhoe, Trentishoe, in Devonshire, Aynho, Ivinghoe, Stanhoe, Wyvenho, elsewhere.[Old English hó would normally give hoo /huː/, which it has given in some of these cases. The hoe /həʊ/ in other parts, may be derived from the Old English dative hóge, giving Middle English hoȝe, howe, how, pronounced like grow, stow. Of this hawe may have been a dialectal form: cf. the phonology of hoe n.², where we have also howe, haw, hoe. In the north of England, there is sometimes confusion between -hoe and -how from Old Norse haugr: see how n.² ]

† hoe-break n. Obsolete = horse-hoe n.

Care, anxiety, trouble.

The name, in Orkney and Shetland, of the Picked Dogfish, Squalus acanthias.

hoe-mother n. (also homer (contracted)) the Basking Shark, Selachus maximus.

hoe-tusk n. the Smooth Houndfish, Mustelus hinnulus.

1. intransitive. To use a hoe; to work with a hoe.

2. transitive. To weed (crops) with a hoe; to thin out (plants) with a hoe; to ‘cultivate’ with a hoe.

3. To break or stir up (the ground) with a hoe, so as to loosen the surface and destroy weeds; to dress with a hoe. See also row n.¹ Phrases 4a, Phrases 4b.

4. with adverb. To dig up, raise up, take away, cut down, cover in, with a hoe.

hoed adj. /həʊd/

ˈhoeable adj.

To dance or play a hoedown.