surf

CEFRB1

/sɜːf/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To ride or move on ocean waves.

  2. 02

    noun

    Waves breaking near the shore.

Examples

  • Has anyone attempted to "surf" the Internet since 1998?

  • When you surf the web, you may be tracked by websites.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • /seːf/

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. A dance popular in the 1960s in which the movements of a surfboard rider are mimicked.

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

noun

Extra meaning

  1. Waves that break on an ocean shoreline.

More examples

In context

  • We should go surf sometime!

  • We went for a surf this morning.

  • […] 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 […]

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

He likes to blank the internet for interesting news.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

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.