Also 4 caalf, 5–7 calfe, 7 calue. [app. a. ON. kálfi of unknown origin; adoption from Ir., Gael. calpa leg, calf of the leg, has been conjectured.]
1. The fleshy hinder part of the shank of the leg, formed by the bellies of muscles that move the foot.
c. 1325. Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., in Wright, Voc., 148. La jambe, the caalf.
c. 1386. Chaucer, C. T., Prol. 592. fful longe were his legges and ful lene ylyk a staf ther was no calf ysene.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 58. Calfe of a legge, sura.
c. 1450. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 678. Hic musculus, the calfe of the lege.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg. The calfe ouer the leg mouyng the fote and ancle.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 645. His legge is too big for Hector. More Calfe certaine.
1794–6. E. Darwin, Zoon. (1801), I. 58. The contraction of the calf of the leg in the cramp.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxvii. A handsome person and calves.
b. transf. The corresponding part of a stocking.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Pet. Poem, 55. My Stocking-calves … Are paradiz’d as naked as my Nock.
1777. Sheridan, Trip Scarb., I. ii. The calves of these stockings are thickened a little too much.
2. Applied to the corresponding part of the arm containing the belly of the triceps muscle.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V. (1887), 33. The triceps … furnishes the calf of the upper arm.
