Skip to the word

Added 9 October 2026

turf

/tɝf/ noun

In Latin: caespes Wiktionary

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

A layer of earth covered with grass; sod.
A piece of such a layer cut from the soil. May be used as sod to make a lawn, dried for peat, stacked to form earthen structures, etc.
A block of peat used as fuel.

verb

To cover with turf; to create a lawn by laying turfs.
To throw a frisbee well short of its intended target, usually causing it to hit the ground within 10 yards of its release.
To fire from a job or dismiss from a task.
Eight managers were turfed after the merger of the two companies.

Origin

From Middle English turf, torf, from Old English turf (“turf, sod, soil, piece of grass-covered earth, greensward”), from Proto-West Germanic *turb (“turf, peat”), from Proto-Germanic *turbz (“turf, lawn”), from Proto-Indo-European *derbʰ- (“tuft, grass”). Cognates Cognate with Scots turr, truff (“turf, peat”), Dutch turf (“turf”), Middle Low German torf (“peat, turf”) (whence German Torf and German Low German Torf), Danish tørv (“peat”), Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish torv (“turf”), Norn *torv (“peat”), French tourbe (“peat”), Finnish turve (“turf”), Lithuanian darbas (“bunch of leaves”), durpės (“peat”), Sanskrit दर्भ (darbhá, “a type of grass”), दूर्वा (dū́rvā, “bent grass”).

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

Back to today's word