Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell calf

hear itcalf/kæf/nounSounds

What it means: A young cow or bull.

In a sentence: The baby cow is called a calf.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as caff or calff.

Same family: calves, calfskin, leg, muscle. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Calf comes from Old English "cealf," which originally referred to the young of a cow; the body-part meaning for the back of the lower leg developed later, probably because that rounded part of the leg looked a bit like a small animal.

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