kerf

See also Kerf

English

Collecting resin: a pot pitched between a nail and a kerf in a tree.

A schematic drawing of a saw blade looking head-on: the divergence between the teeth that protrude left-and-right is the kerf, it defines the width of the saw cut.

Etymology

From Old English cyrf (“a cutting off, a cutting instrument”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɜːf/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

kerf (plural kerfs)

1. The groove or slit created by cutting a workpiece; an incision.
   • 1999, Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon:

     They pass through a cleft that has been made across a low range of hills, like a kerf in the top of a log, and enter into a lovely territory of subtly swelling emerald green fields strewn randomly with small white capsules that he takes to be sheep.

2. The width of the groove made while cutting.
   • 1991, Popular Mechanics, January issue, page 63, "Thin-kerf blades", by Rosario Capotostro

     Sawing with a thin-kerf blade produces a kerf that's 1/2 to 1/3 the size of a standard blade kerf.

3. Distance between diverging saw teeth

Translations

the groove or slit cut in the workpiece

• Russian: зарубка (ru) (zarúbka) f, надруб (ru) (nadrúb) m, пропил (ru) (propíl) m

distance between diverging saw teeth

• Russian: ширина развода зубьев пилы (širiná razvóda zúbʼev pilý)

Related terms

• carve

Verb

kerf (third-person singular simple present kerfs, present participle kerfing, simple past and past participle kerfed)

1. To cut a piece of wood or other material with several kerfs to allow it to be bent.

References

• kerf in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911 (Supplement)

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Dutch

Verb

kerf

1. first-person singular present indicative of kerven
2. imperative of kerven