surf
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Probably from earlier suff, suffe (“the inrush of the sea towards the shore”), possibly from Middle English suffe. Compare sough, surf (“a gutter, drain, sewer, trench”) and sough (“a soothing, gentle, murmuring sound of wind or water”). Alternatively, possibly of Indo-Aryan origin, as the word was formerly a reference to the coast of India, though this is doubtful as no positive etymon can be identified.
The verb is from 1917.
The verb referring to "browsing the Internet" was popularized by Jean Armour Polly.
Inflected forms:
form: surfs
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: surfs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: surfing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: surfed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: surfed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Waves that break on an ocean shoreline.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: […] perhaps it was the look of the island, with its gray, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach […]
'But when the surf fell enough for the boats to get ashore, and Greening held a lantern for me to jump down into the passage, after we had got the side out of the tomb, the first thing the light fell on at the bottom was a white face turned skyward.
It was alone, nervously alighting and flying short distances along the surf.
In most instances the inshore holes or pockets along the surf do not produce as well as the cuts or sloughs between sand bars.
Snook are found in rivers, canals, inlets and along the surf, especially around sand bars, tidal rips, jetties, bridges and piers.
gloss: An instance or session of riding a surfboard in the surf.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: We went for a surf this morning.
gloss: A dance popular in the 1960s in which the movements of a surfboard rider are mimicked.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: She [...] loves to cook, sew and dance. She's up on all the latest steps like the frug, the hully-gully and the surf.
gloss: The bottom of a drain.
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
dialectal
uncountable
gloss: To ride a wave on a surfboard; to pursue or take part in the sport of surfing.
pos: verb
gloss: To surf at a specified place.
pos: verb
gloss: To bodysurf; to swim in the surf at a beach.
pos: verb
examples: Such diversion as Podson could extort from his isolation was soon vitiated by repetition. He surfed. He sun-baked - with discretion till his skin had peeled and given him a harder cuticle.
gloss: To browse the Internet, television, etc.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
Derived words: counter surf
surfboard
surf and turf
Surf Beach
surfbird
surfboarder
surf boat
surf carnival
surfcast
Surf City
surf clam
Surf Coast
surfcoast
surf duck
surfie
surf kayaking
surf lifesaving
surflike
surf line
surfman
surf mat
surfperch
surf punk
surfrider
surf rider
surf riding
surfriding
surf rock
surf satin
surf scoter
surfside
Surfside
surf ski
surf torture
surfwear
surfy
bed surf
bodysurf
car-surf
channel-surf
couch surf
countersurf
crowdsurf
cybersurf
egosurf
kitesurf
netsurf
parasurf
shoulder surf
side surf
silver surfer
skurf
snurf
sofa surf
surfable
surfari
surfatron
surf cast
surfer
surfing
train surf
wakesurf
websurf
Translations: