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Added 2 October 2026

golf

/ɡɒlf/ noun

In Latin: pilamalleus First recorded: 17th century Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about golf at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

Alternative letter-case form of Golf of the ICAO/NATO radiotelephony alphabet.

noun

A ball game played by individuals competing against one another in which the object is to hit a ball into each of a series of (usually 18 or nine) holes in the minimum number of strokes.
Alternative letter-case form of Golf from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet.

verb

To play the game of golf.
To write something in as few characters as possible (e.g. in code golf, regex golf)

Origin

The word is first known in English from the 17th century as a borrowing from Middle Scots golf, gouff. Although the etymology is uncertain, the most likely origin is that it comes from the Middle Dutch colve, colf (“club”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *kulbaz (“club”), related to German Kolben (“piston, rod”), Swedish kolv (“piston, rod”), Old English clopp (“rock; cliff”), English kelp.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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