Word.ws English Dictionary

goff

goff is the obsolete form of golf.

Meaning of golf

Noun

golf (uncountable)

  1. 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.
    • In January, China’s state planner said it had ordered the closure of more than 100 golf courses in a multi-year campaign launched in 2011 to tackle illegal development in the sector.
    • Golf has also been added to a list of Communist Party disciplinary violations, and is often cited in cases of graft.2017 October 16, Adam Jourdan, Matt Miller, “In the rough - China closes Wanda golf courses in chilly northeast”, in Himani Sarkar, editor, Reuters, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2023...

See all 3 meanings of golf

Noun (1)

goff (plural goffs)

  1. (obsolete) A fool; a clown.
    • He calls the bishop Grey-beard Goff,
      And makes his power a mere scoff.1678, “The Geneva Ballad”

Noun (2)

goff (plural goffs)

  1. Synonym of bump (“sudden movement of underground strata”).
    Synonyms:
    bump

Proper noun capitalized: Goff

Goff

  1. A surname.
  2. A minor city in Nemaha County, Kansas, United States.

Synonyms of goff

Forms of goff

pluralgoffs

Origin of goff

Compare French goffe (“ill-made, awkward”), Italian goffo, Spanish gofo, German dialect Goff (“a blockhead”).

* As a Welsh surname, related to Gough. * As an English surname of Cornish and Breton origin, from gov (“smith”). * As an Irish surname, reduced from McGoff, from McGough.

Words formed from goff

Words that rhyme with goff

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about goff

What does goff mean?
Goff means a fool; a clown.
What is goff the obsolete form of?
Goff is the obsolete form of golf.
What part of speech is goff?
Goff can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of goff?
The plural of goff is goffs.

Words near goff in the dictionary

  1. goeyducks
  2. GOF
  3. GOFAI
  4. gofer
  5. gofers
  6. goff
  7. goffan
  8. goffans
  9. Goffe
  10. goffel
  11. goffels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goff (page history and authors); Goff (page history and authors); golf (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: “goff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.