scurf

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɜː(ɹ)f/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)f

Etymology 1

From scurf (“skin disease causing scabs or scales; flakes of skin that fall off due to a skin disease, etc.”), from Old English scurf, from Proto-Germanic *skurf- (“to gnaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off, sever; to divide, separate”). Cognate with Dutch schurft, German Schorf, Danish skurv, Swedish skorv.

Noun

scurf (countable and uncountable, plural scurfs)

1. A skin disease.
2. The flakes of skin that fall off as a result of a skin disease.

   Synonym: dandruff

3. Any crust-like formations on the skin, or in general.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 670–673:

     There ſtood a Hill not far whoſe frieſly top / Belch'd fire and rowling ſmoak; the reſt entire / Shon with a gloſſie ſcurff, undoubted ſign / That in his womb was hid metallic Ore,

4. (figurative) The foul remains of anything adherent.

   Synonym: scum

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Sixth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 392, line 1011:

     The Scurf is worn away, of each committed Crime

5. (botany) Minute membranous scales on the surface of some leaves, as in the goosefoot.
6. (obsolete, slang) A low, mean person.

Derived terms

• scurvy
• sea scurf

Translations

flakes of skin

• Bengali: মরামাস (bn) (moramaś), খুশকি (bn) (khuśoki)
• Bulgarian: пърхот m (pǎrhot)
• Crimean Tatar: (for hair) kebek
• Czech: lupy (cs) m pl
• Greek: (of the scalp) πιτυρίδα (el) f (pityrída)

  Ancient: ἄχωρ m (ákhōr)

• Irish: gainne m
• Italian: crosta (it) f
• Japanese: ふけ (ja) (fuke), かさぶた (ja) (kasabuta)
• Maori: inaho, pakitea, māihiihi, māungaunga
• Tagalog: balikuskos
• Welsh: marwdon m pl or f pl, sgrwff m, cen m

See also

• scarf (possibly related)
• scarf (related)

 

References

• (low, mean person): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Etymology 2

Noun

scurf (plural scurfs)

1. A grey bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus).

References

• “scurf”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• curfs

Old English

Alternative forms

• sceorf

Noun

scurf m

1. scurf

Further reading

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “scurf”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[1], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.