wharf
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English
Etymology
Etymology tree
From Middle English wharf, from Old English hwearf (“heap, embankment, wharf”); related to Old English hweorfan (“to turn”), Old Saxon hwerf (whence German Werft and Warft), Dutch werf, Old High German hwarb (“a turn”), hwerban (“to turn”), Old Norse hvarf (“circle”), and Ancient Greek καρπός (karpós, “wrist”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈwɔːf/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈwɔɹf/
- (without the wine–whine merger) IPA(key): /ˈʍɔɹf/
Audio (General American): (file) - Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)f
Noun
wharf (plural wharves or wharfs)
- (nautical) An artificial landing place for ships on a riverbank or shore.
- 1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume (please specify |volume=I to X), Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company [et al.], →OCLC:
- Commerce pushes its wharves into the sea.
- 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”, in Poems. , volume I, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, part IV, page 86:
- Out upon the wharfs they came, / Knight and burgher, lord and dame, / And round the prow they read her name, / The Lady of Shalott.
- The bank of a river, or the shore of the sea.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
- the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf
Derived terms
Translations
artificial landing place
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Verb
wharf (third-person singular simple present wharfs, present participle wharfing, simple past and past participle wharfed)
- (transitive) To secure by a wharf.
- (transitive) To place on a wharf.
Further reading
wharf on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - wharf (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Middle English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Inherited from Old English hweorfan, from Proto-West Germanic *hwerban, from Proto-Germanic *hwerbaną.
Pronunciation
Noun
wharf (plural wharves)
Derived terms
Descendants
References
- “wharf, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-12-12.