Forms: 1 cealf, celf, cælf, 2 Kentish chalf, 3 kelf, 3–5 kalf, 3– calf, (5 calffe), 6 caulf, Kentish chawlfe, & calve; (Sc. 6–9 cawf, 9 cauf). Pl. calves: 1 cealfru, calfru, calfur, cealfas, 4 calveren, calvys, 4–5 calfis, 7 calfes, 4– calves. (The genit. sing., esp. in comb., was frequently calves.) [Common Teut.: OWS. cealf (pl. cealfru), OMercian cælf (pl. calferu, calfur), ONorthumbrian cælf, cęlf, correspond to OS. and MDu. calf (Du. kalf), OHG. chalb (MHG. kalp, kalb-, mod.G. kalb):—OTeut. *kalboz, -iz neut. In later WS. the word was often masc. (pl. cealfas) = ON. kálfr; in Goth. only the fem. kalbô (δάμαλις) OHG. chalba, mod.G. kalbe female calf, is recorded.]
1. The young of any bovine animal, esp. of the domestic cow. ‘Calf is applied to all young cattle until they attain one year old, when they are year-olds or yearlings’ (Stephens, Bk. Farm, I. 179).
In calf, with calf (said of the cow): pregnant. Golden calf: the idol set up by Aaron, and the similar images set up by Jeroboam; sometimes proverbially with reference to the ‘worship’ of wealth. ‘The calves of our lips’ (a doubtful transl. of a difficult Heb. passage, in Hos. xiv. 2 where the LXX and Peschito have ‘fruit’) is occas. quoted in the sense of ‘an offering of praise.’
a. 800. Corpus Gloss., 2144 (O.E.T.). Vitulus, cælf; vitula, cucælf.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Exod. xxxii. 4. Þa nam he þæt gold and ʓet an cealf and hiʓ cwædon Israhel þis ys þin God.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Luke xv. 27. Þin fæder of-sloh an fæt celf [c. 1160 Hatton G. chalf].
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 138. Hit regibbeð anon, ase uet kelf and idel.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 37. Hire calf sukeð.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 1013. Kalues fleis, and flures bred.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 6503. Þair gold in tresur gadrid þai samen A goldin calf þar-of þai blu.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xxi[i]. 11. Many calfis has vmgifen me; fat bulles me has vmseged.
c. 1371. Wyclif, Begg. Friers (1608), 12. Priests … wenten to calveren of gold. Ibid. (1382), Hosea xiv. 2. We shuln ȝeelde the calues of our lippis [= Vulg. vitulos, LXX καρπόν].
c. 1400. Maundev., ix. 105. Calveren of gold.
1483. Cath. Angl., 51. With Calfe, fetosus.
1534. MS. Acc. St. John’s Hosp. Canterb., Off ye cat’ of cristchurch for a chawlfe, iijs. iiijd.
1539. Taverner, Erasm. Prov. (1552), 10 b. He that hath borne a calfe, shal also beare a bull.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 48. As wise as Waltams calfe.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 114. A taile almost as long as a Calues.
1629. J. Cole, Of Death, 105. Before we can offer unto God with a good conscience, the calves of our lips.
1671. Milton, P. R., III. 416. They … fell off From God to worship Calves.
1727. Swift, Modest Prop., Wks. 1755, II. II. 66. Their mears in foal, their cows in calf.
1861. Th. Martin, Horace’s Odes, II. v. 80. Your heifer bounding in play With the young calves.
b. To slip (cast) the calf: to suffer abortion; said of the cow, also (humorously) of women (obs.).
1664. Pepys, Diary, 19 Sept. Fraizer is so great with … all the ladies at court, in helping to slip their calfes when there is occasion.
1842–71. Stephens, Bk. of Farm, I. 178. A cow that suffers abortion slips her calf.
c. transf. Applied to human beings: A stupid fellow, a dolt; sometimes a meek inoffensive person. Also as a term of endearment. Essex calf: a nickname for a native of that county.
a. 1553. Udall, Royster D., II. iv. in Hazl., Dodsley, III. 94. You great calf, ye should have more wit, so ye should.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 126. How now (you wanton Calfe) Art thou my Calfe?
1627. Drayton, Nymphid. (1631), 171. Some silly doting brainless calfe.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 113, ¶ 3. I cried, like a Captivated Calf as I was.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, IV. 43. It prov’d an Essex Calf.
1865. Punch, 22 April, 162/2. An Essex calf of the first magnitude.
2. ellipt. Leather made from the hide or skin of a calf. (More fully calf-leather; see 7.)
1727. Swift, Further Acc. E. Curll, Wks. 1755, III. I. 156. As to the report of my poor husband’s stealing o’ calf, it is really groundless, for he always binds in sheep.
1879. Print. Trades Jrnl., XXVIII. 9. The material used is Calf.
1879. in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 88. Calf is … prepared by the process called by tanners ‘tawing.’
3. The young of other animals; as of deer, the elephant, the whale.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xxx. (1495), 793. The hynde etyth of the herbe Dragancia to be delyuerde of her calffe the more eesely.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, E j b. Ye shall hym [a hart] a Calfe . call at the fyrst yere.
1597. Return fr. Parnass., II. II. v. 887. Your Hart is the first yeare a Calfe, the second yeare a Brochet.
1725. Dudley, in Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 260. The Calf, or young Whale, has been found perfectly form’d in the Cow, when not above seventeen Inches long.
1860. Tennent, Ceylon, II. 397. An elephant, which had been captured by Mr. Cripps, dropped a female calf.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, I. XI. xi. § 2. 155. The hounds also by their tongues indicate … the presence, if any, of a calf with the hind.
1884. Jefferies, Red Deer, iv. 63. The young of the … tall red deer are called calves.
4. Sea-calf, a popular name of the Seal, esp. Calocephalus vitulinus (or Phoca vitulina).
c. 1613. Chapman, Odyss., IV. (R.). In Sholes the sea-calues came.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnar., Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 182. The Calves Marine, who on firm Ground Are wont to take a Sleep profound.
1841. Penny Cycl., XXI. 161/2. The vulgar name is sea-calf, and on that account the male is called the bull, and the female the cow.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxvii. (1856), 221. Some overgrown Greenland calves come within hot…. Very strange are these seal.
5. transf. a. A small island lying close to a larger one. [ON. kálfr; known in Eng. only in ‘The Calf of Man.’]
1833. J. Gorton, Topogr. Dict., I. 347. Calf of Man … An island, situated off the south-west extremity of the Isle of Man.
1860. H. Marryat, Resid. Jutland, II. vii. 91. The early Northmen often named these small islands ‘Calves.’
1860. Backwell’s Guide Isle of Man, 60. Beyond lies the Calf of Man…. The Calf … contains about 600 superficial acres of land.
6. An iceberg detached from a coast glacier; a fragment of ice detached from an iceberg or floe.
1818. Edin. Rev., XXX. 18. The fragments of ice, which the seamen term calves.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlii. (1856), 395. The interposition of floating fragments or calves. Ibid., xliii. 401. ‘Calves.’… Fragments of tables … which have been forced down by pressure, and afterward … have been liberated again from the floe, and find their way upward wherever an opening permits.
7. Comb. a. Obvious and general, as calf-brains, -flesh, -guts, -head, -house, -leather, -pen, -whale, -worship; calf-like adj. and adv. (For parts of the animal the genit. calf’s, calves’, is now usual.)
c. 1600[?]. Distracted Emp., I. i. in O. Pl. (1884), III. 181. You love the cubboarde Wherein your *calves brayns are lockt up for breakfast.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 2714. He … þam fedd wit *calf flesse [Trin. MS. calues flesshe].
c. 1425. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker 661. Caro uitulina, calfflesche.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., II. iii. 34. It is a voyce in her eares which … *Calues-guts, nor the voyce of vnpaued Eunuch to boot, can neuer amend.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 87. To dress a *Calf’s Head Surprise.
1813. Moore, Post Bag, iii. 34. The dish … Was, what old Mother Glasse calls, ‘a calf’s-head surprised’! Ibid. (1823), Fab., Holy Alliance, II. 91. A Duke of birth sublime … (Some calf-head, ugly from all time).
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 472. *Calves-house, 22 feet by 16, with their pens.
1879. in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 416/2. The calf-house … should be a roomy, well-ventilated building.
1726. Amherst, Terræ Filius, xxxviii. 200. Dress’d in a suit of *calve’s-leather cloaths.
1610. Shaks., Temp., IV. i. 179. *Calfe-like, they my lowing follow’d.
1856. Farmer’s Mag., Jan., 86. Have the *calf-pens opening into the cowshed for convenience of suckling.
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, xiii. I was going to swim to the *calf whale.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, V. v. 152. *Calfe-worship … continued in the kingdome of Israel.
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 82. He [Jeroboam] would have calf-worship to be the only worship of God.
b. Special combinations: calf-bed, a cow’s matrix (dial.); also (humorous) parturition (of a cow), cf. child-bed; calf-bound a. (Bookbinding), bound in calf (cf. 2); calf-country, calf-ground (Sc.), the place of one’s birth or early life; † calf-haulm (see quot.); calf-kill, a heath plant (Kalmia latifolia) injurious to cattle eating it; cf. ‘lambkill’ = K. angustifolia; calf-knee, popular name for the malformation called genu valgum, or knock-knee; calf-land = calf-country; calf-lea (Sc.), ‘infield ground, one year under natural grass’ (Jamieson); calf-lick (dial.), a tuft of hair on the forehead which will not lie smoothly and evenly; a cowlick, a ‘feather’; † calf-lolly (? nonce-wd.), a stupid calf; calf-love, romantic attachment or affection between a boy and a girl; calf-lymph, vaccine lymph obtained direct from the animal; calf’s-teeth sb. pl., milk teeth; calf-time, the period of youth; calf-trundle (dial.), ‘the entrails of a calf; fig. applied to the ruffle of a shirt, or flounces of a gown’ (Halliwell); calf-ward (Sc.), a small field or enclosure for calves. Also CALF’S-FOOT, CALF-SKIN, CALVES’-SNOUT.
1822. Southey, Lett. (1856), III. 305. Your uncle Tom has lost a cow, in *calf-bed.
1831. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 561. That, I believe, is his *calf-country.
1884. Illust. Lond. News, 21 June, 606/2. We’ll go and take a look at my *calf-ground.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, III. 486. A Cow that strains in Calving, when their *Calf-haulm, Udder, or Bag, will come down and swell as much as a blown Bladder.
1765. Dickson, Agric., xiii. 109. When it is only two or three years old, it is called, in some parts of the country, *calf-lea.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. lxvii. I was … a *Call-lolly, a Doddipole.
1823. Galt, Entail, I. xxxii. 284. I made a *calf-love marriage.
1863. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s L., II. 104. It’s a girl’s fancy—just a kind o’ calf-love; let it go by.
1884. Christian World, 5 June, 417/4. Any doctor can procure *calf-lymph for his patients.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 173/2. A *Calf Ride [is] a place made of Boughs … in which the Calf is kept whilst he is sucking.
1599. Porter, Angry Wom. Abingt. (1841), 88. Ere your *calues teeth were out, you thought it long.
1822. Scott, Nigel, ix. Where have you been spending your *calf-time?
1785. Burns, Dr. Hornbook, xxiii. His braw *calf-ward whare gowans grew.
