Other forms: golfing
Golf is the game of hitting a small ball into a distant hole with as few strokes as possible, played across a large green course. A round of golf is eighteen holes and takes about four hours.
The vocabulary is worth a little attention because almost none of it is guessable: a club is the stick, a course is the ground, a hole is both the target and the section of the course leading to it, par is the expected number of strokes, and a birdie and a bogey are one under and one over. The verb is to golf in American English and to play golf in British. And Golf is the letter G in the international radio alphabet, which is why pilots say it constantly.
1noungolfA game in which players hit a small ball into a series of holes with clubs.
“They play golf every Sunday morning.”
2verbplayTo play golf.
“He golfs badly and often.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
golf is a sport.
The word came into Scots from Middle Dutch colve, a club or bat, from a Germanic root meaning a rounded stick. The game is named for the implement, exactly as cricket and hockey probably are.
gmw-msc
golf
English, today
golf
Built from
Borrowed from gmw-msc golf. The word is first known in English from the 17th century as a borrowing from gmw-msc 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA