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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wharf.

An artificial landing place for ships on a riverbank or shore.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈwɔːf/Received-Pronunciation/ˈwɔɹf/General-American/ˈʍɔɹf/
  1. An artificial landing place for ships on a riverbank or shore.

  2. Any bank of a river or shore of a sea.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *hwerbaną Proto-West Germanic *hwerban Old English hweorfan Middle English wharf English wharf 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”).

verb/ˈwɔːf/Received-Pronunciation/ˈwɔɹf/General-American/ˈʍɔɹf/
  1. To secure by a wharf.

    transitive
  2. To place on a wharf.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *hwerbaną Proto-West Germanic *hwerban Old English hweorfan Middle English wharf English wharf 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”).

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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.