golf.
A ball game played by individuals competing against one another in which the object is to hit a ball into each of a series of (usually 18 or nine) holes in the minimum number of strokes.
Meaning & usage
A ball game played by individuals competing against one another in which the object is to hit a ball into each of a series of (usually 18 or nine) holes in the minimum number of strokes.
Alternative letter-case form of Golf from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet.
Where this word comes from
The word is first known in English from the 17th century as a borrowing from Middle Scots golf, gouff. Although the etymology is uncertain, the most likely origin is that it comes from the Middle Dutch colve, colf (“club”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *kulbaz (“club”), related to German Kolben (“piston, rod”), Swedish kolv (“piston, rod”), Old English clopp (“rock; cliff”), English kelp.
To play the game of golf.
To write something in as few characters as possible (e.g. in code golf, regex golf)
Where this word comes from
The word is first known in English from the 17th century as a borrowing from Middle Scots golf, gouff. Although the etymology is uncertain, the most likely origin is that it comes from the Middle Dutch colve, colf (“club”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *kulbaz (“club”), related to German Kolben (“piston, rod”), Swedish kolv (“piston, rod”), Old English clopp (“rock; cliff”), English kelp.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.