Hof
Origin 1
A loan from German Hof ("building, farm, estate; enclosure, courtyard, court").
Full definition of hof
Noun
hof
(plural hofs)- Enclosure, court, dwelling, building, house.
- 1993 May, William, Trevor, Jake's Castle, in Harper's Magazine:Ulrike lived in a farm hof, and all around me were the dark blank fields punctuated by a few disparate lights.
- 2009, Chloe Aridjis, Book of Clouds (New York: Black Cat, 1st edition):Like many old houses, this one had a front section, where I lived, and at the back an interior courtyard, the Hof, enclosed on all three sides by more apartments.
Pronunciation
- enPR: hÅf, IPA: /hoÊŠf/
Origin 2
From Old Norse hóf, reinforced in modern (post-1990, chiefly neopagan) use by Icelandic hof ("shrine, temple").
Noun
hof
(plural hofs)- (Neopaganism) Template, sanctuary, hall.
- 1996 for each ten churches burned to ashes, one heathen hof is avenged Varg Vikernes, cited after Gardell, Gods of the Blood, 2003, p. 307.
- 2005 Asatruarfelagid lacks a central religious temple, or hof in Icelandic. Constructing a hof has been high on the members' wish list for many years Michael Strmiska, Modern Paganism In World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, p. 170.
- 2006 A Hof dedicated to the worship of the Aesir and the Vanir idhavellihof.org any number of US Asatru uses after 2006
- 2007 ... is to acquire tribal lands, build a Hof and Hall heathengods.com
- 2011 ... organization located in the Twin Cities, recently purchased a building to be used as a Hof. pncminnesota.com
Origin 3
From Korean 호프, in turn from German Hofbräuhaus, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *hufą ("farm, building"). In English, the spelling has been re-aligned with the Korean term's etymon, Hof(bräuhaus). Compare howff ("tavern").