Word.ws English Dictionary

'arf

'arf noun: half.

Noun

'arf

  1. (Cockney, UK, especially, representing nonstandard or dialect pronunciation) Half.
    • 'Arf the night through he's at that game, the silly old juggins.1894, Arthur Conan Doyle, Round the Red Lamp
    • Hasn't ye 'eard that devil's spawn of a capting an' is mates knockin' the bloomin' lights outen 'arf the crew?1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

Origin of 'arf

A representation of the pronunciation of half by a speaker whose dialect is non-rhotic and also lacks the voiceless glottal fricative or transition ([h]).

Questions about 'arf

What does 'arf mean?
'arf means half.
What part of speech is 'arf?
'arf is a noun.

Words near 'arf in the dictionary

  1. 'arboured
  2. 'arbourin'
  3. 'arbours
  4. 'ard
  5. 'Are'are
  6. 'arf
  7. 'ark at 'ee
  8. 'Arries
  9. 'Arriet
  10. 'Arriets
  11. 'Arry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 'arf (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “'arf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%27arf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.