fetlock
noun
fetlock is a noun meaning “A joint of the horse's leg below the knee or hock and above the hoof” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-E-T-L-O-C-K, and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fetlock is fetlocks.
What does fetlock mean?
noun
- 1
A joint of the horse's leg below the knee or hock and above the hoof.
- 2
The tuft of hair that grows at this joint.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce fetlock?
- US
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-fetlock.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of fetlock
- fetlocks plural
- fetterlock
- fewterlock
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is fetlock?
Fetlock appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Fetlock in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense joint of the horse's leg:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does fetlock come from?
From Middle English fitlokes, feetlakkes pl, taken to be foot + lock (“tuft of hair”) 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”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).