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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

surface.

The external boundary of an object or body.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsɜː.fɪs//ˈsɜː.fəs//ˈsɝ.fɪs//ˈsɝ.fəs/
  1. The external boundary of an object or body.

  2. The overside or upside of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.

  3. The outside hull of a tangible object.

  4. Outward or external appearance.

    figuratively
    On the surface, the spy looked like a typical businessman.
  5. The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a space of more than two dimensions.

  6. The story or image suggested by a cryptic clue, when read as a whole sentence without considering wordplay.

  7. A portion of the display to which graphics can be rendered.

    The video player algorithm requires a target surface.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle French surface. By surface analysis, sur- + face. Doublet of superficies.

verb/ˈsɜː.fɪs//ˈsɜː.fəs//ˈsɝ.fɪs//ˈsɝ.fəs/
  1. To provide with a surface; to apply a surface to.

    transitive
    The crew surfaced the road with bitumen.
  2. To rise to the surface.

    intransitive
    There was great relief when the missing diver finally surfaced.
  3. To bring to the surface.

    transitive
  4. To come out of hiding.

    figuratively · intransitive
  5. To become known or apparent; to appear or be found; to come to light.

    intransitive
  6. To make (information, facts, content, etc) known.

    transitive
  7. To work a mine near the surface.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle French surface. By surface analysis, sur- + face. Doublet of superficies.

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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.