wharf

English

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old English hwearf (“heap, embankment, wharf”); related to Old English hweorfan (“to turn”), Old Saxon hwarf, Dutch werf, Old High German hwarb (“a turn”), hwerban (“to turn”), Old Norse hvarf (“circle”), Greek καρπός (karpós, “wrist”).

Pronunciation

Noun

wharf (plural wharves or wharfs)

  1. A man-made landing place for ships on a shore or river bank.
    • Bancroft
      Commerce pushes its wharves into the sea.
    • Tennyson
      Out upon the wharfs they came, / Knight and burgher, lord and dame.
  2. The bank of a river, or the shore of the sea.
    • Shakespeare
      the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf

Synonyms

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Verb

wharf (third-person singular simple present wharfs, present participle wharfing, simple past and past participle wharfed)

  1. (transitive) To secure by a wharf.
  2. (transitive) To place on a wharf.

See also

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