spoor, verb

/spʊə(r)/
Forms:
Also spure.
Origin:
DutchShow more From Dutch sporen to track, or from spoor noun.
a. transitive. To track (animals, people, or vehicles).
1850 R.G.G. Cumming Hunter’s Life p.xxiHe could not see those [elephants] we were spooring.
a1858 J. Goldswain Chron. II. 62We spured them for about two Miles.
a1858 J. Goldswain Chron. II. 123His Excellency [Sir H. Smith] then said: how was it that you cannot spoor them?
1863 W.C. Baldwin Afr. Hunting 122We spoored them beautifully into a dense thicket.
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 148With no Colonel to keep him up to the mark while she was out lion-shooting or spooring a stray beast, Aladdin’s Slave degenerated on kafir beer laced with the Colonel’s own Very Special Scotch, till house-keeping became a farce.
1958 S. Cloete Mask 63He lived alone, hunted jackals, rooikats and other vermin, killing an occasional buck to eat and waiting till his master sent for him to go hunting or spoor lost cattle.
1963 S. Cloete Chetoko 17Taking the spear..he set off to spoor the man.
b. intransitive. To follow a trail or spoor; to track; (nonce) to lead towards (something).
1872 E.J. Dunn in A.M.L. Robinson Sel. Articles from Cape Monthly Mag. (1978) 55There is not one, but many carts, and which is the real one? Luckily, at this juncture he fell in with the track and this ‘spoored’ up to his own identical vehicle.
1896 R.S.S. Baden-Powell Matabele Campaign p.ivOne..who can ride and spoor and can take charge of the horses.
1939 P. Louw in Outspan 6 Oct. 31A big male lion was shot dead recently in the act of seizing a dog in broad daylight. At the time the dog was spooring fifty yards ahead of his master in the long grass.
1970 Cape Times 14 MaySpoored 4 days. When the farmer realized she was feeding cubs, Mr. Bristow tracked her spoor for four days to find the litter nearly dead from starvation.
To track (animals, people, or vehicles).
To follow a trail or spoor; to track; (nonce) to lead towards (something).
Derivatives:
Hence spoorer  noun, a tracker; spooring  verbal noun and participial adjective, tracking, also attributive.
1850 R.G.G. Cumming Hunter’s Life p.xvI had great faith in the spooring powers of the Bamangwato men.
1856 F.P. Fleming Sn Afr. 368After about an hour’s search and ‘spooring,’ we at length came upon its object.
1860 A.W. Drayson Sporting Scenes 50By these kaffirs I was taught the art of spooring; my lessons were learned over the print of some buck’s foot on the bent-down blade of a bit of grass.
1863 W.C. Baldwin Afr. Hunting 259I followed silently in the rear of the spoorers.
1878 P. Gillmore Great Thirst Land 434At length..I saw the spoorer stop, look back, and wave his hand.
1885 H. Rider Haggard King Solomon’s Mines 45Ventvögel I had known before; he was one of the most perfect ‘spoorers’ (game-trackers) I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord.
1948 A.C. White Call of Bushveld 172Spooring is the most highly skilled ‘profession’ of the bushveld.
1949 C. Bullock Rina 80Sooner or later he would be found with good spooring, probably sooner than later, and he would be dangerous.
1964 V. Pohl Dawn & After 128His spooring abilities exceeded those of primitive peoples anywhere.
1971 [see go-away sense 2].
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spoorer
spooring
spoor, nounn.spoorweg, nounn.
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