kerf
/kɜː(ɹ)f/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.84 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "They pass through a cleft that has been made across a low range of hills, like a kerf in the top of a log, and enter into a lovely territory of subtly swelling emerald green fields strewn randomly with small white capsules that he takes to be sheep."
- "1991, Popular Mechanics, January issue, page 63, "Thin-kerf blades", by Rosario Capotostro Sawing with a thin-kerf blade produces a kerf that's 1/2 to 1/3 the size of a standard blade kerf."
- "Sebastian, still not alone, is seated on the white-and-cinder-grey trunk of a felled tree. […] A Camberwell Beauty skims past and settles on the kerf, fanning its velvety wings."
Etymology
From Middle English kerf, kirf, kyrf, from Old English cyrf (“an act of cutting, a cutting off; a cutting instrument”), from Proto-West Germanic *kurbi, from Proto-Germanic *kurbiz (“a cut; notch; clipping”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- (“to scratch”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Käärf, West Frisian kerf, Swedish korv. Related also to Dutch kerf, German Low German Karve, Karv, German Kerbe.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: kerf, cyrf, *kurbi, *kurbiz, *gerbʰ-
Usage
Inflected Forms
Phrases
kerf allowance
kerf graft