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fetlock

nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,158 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: fetlocks

The fetlock is the joint just above a horse's hoof. Injure a fetlock, the fetlock joint, deep in mud to the fetlock.

It takes enormous force at the gallop and is where many racing injuries happen. The name looks like foot plus lock but is not: it comes from an old word for the tuft of hair that grows behind the joint.

BLW · Public domain

Definitions of fetlock

  1. 1nounfetlockThe joint just above a horse's hoof.C2

    “The horse was standing in mud up to its fetlocks.”

fetlock is a joint.

Where it comes from

Middle English fitlok comes from an old Germanic word for the tuft of hair behind the joint, not from foot plus lock.

  1. Old English

    -oc

  2. Middle English

    fitlokes

  3. English, today

    fetlock

From Middle English fitlokes, feetlakkes, taken to be foot + lock but actually a misdivision of Old English -oc. Cognate with Middle Low German fitlok, fitlock (“fetlock”), Dutch vitlok, vittelokke, vitslok, German Fissloch, Fisloch, Fislach (“fetlock; pastern”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Horses & Riding

Practise this word

fetlock in the wild

  • When the leg is supporting the horse's weight, this ligament supports the fetlock joint.

    Suspensory ligament

  • The pastern is a part of the leg of a horse below the fetlock and above the hoof.

    Pastern

  • Osselet is arthritis in the fetlock joint of a horse, caused by trauma.

    Osselet

  • Osselets usually occur in the front legs of the horse, because there is more strain and concussion on the fetlock there than in the hind legs.

    Osselet

  • Pink Star won the Kentucky Derby by two lengths over Zal on a very wet track, with the mud being a fetlock deep in some places.

    Pink Star

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.