SURF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does surf mean? 

• SURF (noun)
  The noun SURF has 1 sense:

1. waves breaking on the shore

  Familiarity information: SURF used as a noun is very rare.

• SURF (verb)
  The verb SURF has 3 senses:

1. ride the waves of the sea with a surfboard

2. look around casually and randomly, without seeking anything in particular

3. switch channels, on television

  Familiarity information: SURF used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SURF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Waves breaking on the shore

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

breaker; breakers; surf

Hypernyms ("surf" is a kind of...):

moving ridge; wave (one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water))

Derivation:

surf (ride the waves of the sea with a surfboard)

• SURF (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they surf    ... he / she / it surfs   
Past simple: surfed   
Past participle: surfed   
-ing form: surfing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Ride the waves of the sea with a surfboard

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

surf; surfboard

Context example:

Californians love to surf

Hypernyms (to "surf" is one way to...):

glide (move smoothly and effortlessly)

Domain category:

athletics; sport (an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "surf"):

windsurf (ride standing on a surfboard with an attached sail, on water)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

surf (waves breaking on the shore)

surfer (someone who engages in surfboarding)

surfing (the sport of riding a surfboard toward the shore on the crest of a wave)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Look around casually and randomly, without seeking anything in particular

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

browse; surf

Context example:

surf the internet or the world wide web

Hypernyms (to "surf" is one way to...):

look for; search; seek (try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of)

Verb group:

browse; shop (shop around; not necessarily buying)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Switch channels, on television

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

channel-surf; surf

Hypernyms (to "surf" is one way to...):

change; shift; switch (lay aside, abandon, or leave for another)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

 Context examples 

There was not a breath of air moving, nor a sound but that of the surf booming half a mile away along the beaches and against the rocks outside.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

There was much of darkness and silence, broken only by the storms and the thunder on the beach of the freezing surf.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

As the sound waves propagate, they trap the electrons, pushing them through the device in a very precise way, as if the electrons are ‘surfing’ on the sound waves.

(Quantum state of single electrons controlled by ‘surfing’ on sound waves, University of Cambridge)

But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, Still bad, but not so bad.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He lay on a coral beach where the cocoanuts grew down to the mellow-sounding surf.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

At dawn and at sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets broke into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading away into the darkness which held us in.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The beaches of the outer cove were thundering with the surf, and even in our land-locked inner cove a respectable sea was breaking.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But the look of them, added to the difficulty of the shore and the high running of the surf, was more than enough to disgust me of that landing-place.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Storm followed storm, and between the storms there was the silence, broken only by the boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where the salt spray rimmed the beach with frozen white.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)