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scarf

UK/skɑːf/US/skɑɹf/
nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,850 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: scarves, scarfs

A scarf is the long soft cloth you wrap around your neck in winter. Wool, knitted, and often given as a present.

It also covers lighter ones worn for decoration, and a headscarf is tied over the hair. Football supporters hold theirs above their heads, which makes it a badge as much as a garment. The plural is either scarves or scarfs, and both are correct. There is an unrelated verb in carpentry, since to scarf two pieces of timber is to join them with overlapping ends.

https://www.kaschmirprodukte.de · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of scarf

  1. 1nounscarfA length of fabric worn round the neck or head.A2+

    “She wound a scarf twice round her neck.”

Where it comes from

The origin is uncertain, and the best guess is a cutting: Old Norse skarfr, from skera, to cut. A scarf would then be named as a strip cut off something larger.

  1. fro-nor

    escarpe

  2. English, today

    scarf

Probably from fro-nor escarpe (compare Old French escharpe (“pilgrim's purse suspended from the neck”), which see). The verb is derived from the noun. a doublet of scrip.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Clothes & Fashion, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 13 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

scarf in the wild

  • A scarf (pl.: scarves or scarfs) is a long piece of fabric that is worn on or around the neck, shoulders, or head.

    Scarf

  • A boa is a fashion accessory that is usually worn wrapped around the neck like a scarf.

    Boa (clothing accessory)

  • The scarf joint is used when the material being joined is not available in the length required.

    Scarf joint

  • A tippet is a piece of clothing worn over the shoulders in the shape of a scarf, cape, or wrap.

    Tippet

  • In later fashion, a tippet is often any scarf-like wrap, usually made of fur, such as the sixteenth-century zibellino or the fur-lined capelets worn in the mid-18th century.

    Tippet

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.