surf

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sɜːf/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sɝf/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)f
• Homophone: serf (in accents with the fern-fir-fur merger)

Unknown. Formerly spelled suffe, and possibly related to sough, or possibly of Indo-Aryan origin, as the word was formerly a reference to the coast of India.

surf (countable and uncountable, plural surfs)

1. Waves that break on an ocean shoreline.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     […] 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 […]

   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 5

     '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.

   • 1900, Joseph Grinnell, Birds of the Kotzebue Sound Region, Alaska‎, page 12:

     It was alone, nervously alighting and flying short distances along the surf.

   • 1941, Raymond Russell Camp, Fishing the Surf‎, page 248:

     In most instances the inshore holes or pockets along the surf do not produce as well as the cuts or sloughs between sand bars.

   • 1963, Vlad Evanoff, Spin Fishing‎, page 181:

     Snook are found in rivers, canals, inlets and along the surf, especially around sand bars, tidal rips, jetties, bridges and piers.

2. An instance or session of riding a surfboard in the surf.

   We went of a surf this morning.

3. (Britain, dialectal) The bottom of a drain.

surf (third-person singular simple present surfs, present participle surfing, simple past and past participle surfed)

1. To ride a wave, usually on a surfboard.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To browse the Internet.

• surfer noun

• (ride a wave): surfer, surfing, surfboard; crowdsurf, train-surf
• (browse the Internet): channel-surf, cybersurf, netsurf, silver surfer

• Furs, furs

From English surf.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsuɾf/
• Stress: sùrf
• Hyphenation: surf

surf m (invariable)

1. (sports) surfing

• surfista
• surfare
• tavola da surf
• windsurf

From English surf.

• IPA^(key): /suɾf/, /so̞ɾf/

surf m (uncountable)

1. surfing

• surfista
• surfear