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 Middle English kerf, kirf, kyrf, from Old English cyrf (“an act of cutting, a cutting off; a cutting instrument”), from Proto-Germanic *kurbiz (“a cut; notch”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- (“to scratch”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Käärf, German Kerbe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɜːf/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)f

Noun

kerf (plural kerfs)

1. (now rare) The act of cutting or carving something; a stroke or slice.
2. The groove or slit created by cutting or sawing something; 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.

3. The distance between diverging saw teeth.
   • 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.

4. The flattened, cut-off end of a branch or tree; a stump or sawn-off cross-section.
   • 1941, Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Penguin 1971 edition, page 115:

     Sebastian, still not alone, is seated on the white-and-cinder-grey trunk of a felled tree. […] A Camberwell Beauty skims past and settles on the kerf, fanning its velvety wings.

5. The portion or quantity (e.g. of hay, turf, wool, etc.) cut off in a given stroke.

Related terms

• carve
• swarf

Translations

the groove or slit cut in the workpiece

• Bulgarian: рязка (bg) f (rjazka)
• Finnish: lovi (fi), uurros (fi)
• German: Einschnitt (de) m, Kerbe (de) f, Nut (de) f, Schlitz (de) m, Schnittfuge f, Fuge (de) f

• Italian: intaccatura (it) f
• Russian: зару́бка (ru) f (zarúbka), надру́б (ru) m (nadrúb), пропи́л (ru) m (propíl)

distance between diverging saw teeth

• Finnish: uurros (fi)
• French: voie (fr)
• German: Schränkung f

• Russian: ^{(please verify)} ширина́ разво́да зу́бьев пилы́ (širiná razvóda zúbʹjev pilý)
• Spanish: traba (es) f

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, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911. (Supplement)

Anagrams

• f**ker, ferk

---

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɛrf/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: kerf
• Rhymes: -ɛrf

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch kerve. The sense “insect” was borrowed from German Kerf.

Noun

kerf m (plural kerven, diminutive kerfje n)

1. a carve or groove
2. (rare, obsolete) insect

   Synonyms: insect, kerfdier, gekorven dier

Derived terms

• kerfbank
• kerfdier
• kerfstok

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

kerf

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

---

Middle English

Alternative forms

• carffe, kerfe, kirf, kyrf

Etymology

From Old English cyrf, from Proto-West Germanic *kurbi, from Proto-Germanic *kurbiz.

The predominance of forms in -e- is probably due to the influence of kerven.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɛrf/, /kirf/

Noun

kerf (plural kerves)

1. The act of cutting or carving; a stroke or slice.
2. (rare) An incision; the result of cutting.
3. (rare) The edge of a blade.

Descendants

• English: kerf, carf
• Scots: kerf, carf

References

• “kirf, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.