fetlock

fetlock means A joint of the horse's leg below the knee or hock and above the hoof.

Etymology

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”).

noun

A joint of the horse's leg below the knee or hock and above the hoof.e.g.“It was the better part of a mile wide, but save for some fathoms in the middle, where the Sker current ran, it was no deeper even at flood than a horse's fetlocks.” — 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
The tuft of hair that grows at this joint.

Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Words closest in meaning

By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.

fetlocked 72% match — Having fetlocks (of a specified kind). vs fetlock →
hooflet 64% match — A little hoof. vs fetlock →
horsefeather 62% match — One of the long hairs on lower legs of a draft horse, see horsefeathers. vs fetlock →
gambrel 61% match — The hind leg of a horse; the hock. vs fetlock →
forehoof 61% match — A front hoof. vs fetlock →
suffrago 60% match — The joint between the tibia and tarsus, such as the hock of a horse's hind leg or the heel of a bird. vs fetlock →
windgall 58% match — A puffy, typically fluid filled sac located just above the fetlock joint on a horse, generally appearing on old or poorly kept horses. vs fetlock →
foreshank 55% match — The upper part of the foreleg of cattle. vs fetlock →