1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Hoof it or beat it on the hoof, to walk on Foot.
1691–2. Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, ii., 560. Landing at Liverpool, in Lancashire, they all beated it on the hoof thence to London.
1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.
1772. Cumberland, Fashionable Lover. Prologue. I am a devil, so please you, and must hoof Up to the poet yonder with this proof.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Hoof. To beat the hoof, to travel on foot; he hoofed it, or beat the hoof, every step of the way from Chester to London.
1813. J. and H. Smith, Horace in London, ‘Hurly-Burly,’ p. 24. When hostile squadrons beat the hoof.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. ix. Charley Bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof.
1885. Detroit Free Press, 5 Sept., p. 1, c. 1. These busted theatrical people who are hoofing it back to Detroit. They come along at all hours of the day and night.
1888. Lynch, Mountain Mystery, ch. xviii. I s’posed he was tired out, and had got over watchin’ for tricks. So I hoofed it in.
1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. 70. Scenery’s all very proper, but where is the genuine pot who’d pad the ’oof over the moors. [[341]]