spoor

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“
Then, after we escaped from the reeds and swamps, we found ourselves upon stony uplands where the spoor was almost impossible to follow, indeed, we only rediscovered it by stumbling across the dead body of that cannibal whom Inez had wounded.

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun The track or trail of an animal, especially a wild animal.
  2. transitive and intransitive verb To track (an animal) by following its spoor or to engage in such tracking.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • One of the herd boys found their fresh spoor, and we camped down that night expecting to have them round the cattle. —  Diary of a Soldier of Fortune
  • This troll spoor is amazingly similar to the misogynist stuff which gets posted on the blog for which I write. —  feminist blogs
  • Hours of tracking and backtracking led them onto at least six different sets of recent spoor-all illegal poachers and itinerants on Arda. —  The Moderate Voice
  • I could discern a track of sorts, but the footmark of the animal was much blurred in the soft sand; I could see that it was not antelope-spoor, and that was all. —  Chatterbox, 1906
  • We had crossed a high road, and entered the belting of trees again, and along this road the gangers would come, and our spoor was written plain There will be the collieshangie when they see our marks in the snaw, but they'll founder their horses on the brae and ill-use time tae nae purpose, if just we get ower the common From the high ground we could see the road for half a mile and the hunters in full cry, some on horseback and some afoot Horse and foot," says Dan at my ear. —  The McBrides A Romance of Arran
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Afrikaans, from Middle Dutch; see sperə- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Dutch spoor = Middle Low German spor = Old High German Middle High German spor, German spur = Icelandic spor = Swedish spår = Danish spor, track, = Anglo-Saxon spor, a track, trace, footprint. Cf. speer, spur.
  2. from spoor, n. Cf. speer.
 

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/spur/
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