foreleg
/ˈfɔrˌlɛɡ/noun
foreleg is a noun meaning “Either of the two legs towards the front of a four-legged animal such as a horse, or towards the front of a many-legged animal such as most insects…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-E-L-E-G and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of foreleg is forelegs.
What does foreleg mean?
noun
- 1
Either of the two legs towards the front of a four-legged animal such as a horse, or towards the front of a many-legged animal such as most insects, or of a piece of furniture, etc.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce foreleg?
- US /ˈfɔrˌlɛɡ/
Foreleg has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-foreleg.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of foreleg
- forelegs plural
- fore
- leg
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is foreleg?
Foreleg appears about once in every 12 million words in written English, the 105,204th 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).
Foreleg in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense either of the two legs towards the front of a four-legged animal:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | patte de devant, patte avant |
| German | Vorderlauf, Vorderbein |
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 foreleg come from?
From fore- + leg.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).