Word.ws English Dictionary

nerf

UK/nɜːf/US/nɝf/

nerf verb: to bump lightly, whether accidentally or purposefully.

Verb (1)

nerf (third-person singular simple present nerfs, present participle nerfing, simple past and past participle nerfed)

  1. (transitive) To bump lightly, whether accidentally or purposefully.
    • A racer will often nerf another as a psychological tactic.
    • "The crazy fool!" Ricky exclaimed. "Nerfing me!"1953, Henry Gregor Felsen, Street Rod, Random House, page 129

Verb (2)

nerf (third-person singular simple present nerfs, present participle nerfing, simple past and past participle nerfed)

  1. (slang, transitive) To change a mechanic, an ability, or a character in a video game in order to make less efficacious.
    • The lightning spell was originally pretty powerful, but in the sequel they nerfed it so it became completely useless.
    Synonyms:
    gimp
  2. (slang, transitive) To arbitrarily limit or reduce the capability of.
    • Tesla nerfs Autopilot in Europe due to new regulations2019 May 17, Fred Lambert, Electrek, retrieved 19 May 2019

Noun (1)

nerf (plural nerfs)

  1. (slang) The deterioration, weakening or worsening of a character, a weapon, a spell, etc.

Noun (2) capitalized: NeRF

NeRF (plural NeRFs)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of neural radiance field.

nerf meaning in Thai

nerf in Thai

to arbitrarily limit or reduce one's capacity
เนิร์ฟ nə́əf

Examples of nerf in a sentence

  • Those nerf nets may look weird, but they've saved me a lot of pain.
  • Getting hit by a nerf ball doesn't hurt at all.
  • As of the current patch, Luke’s crouching Medium Punch has been nerfed.

All 11 example sentences with nerf

Synonyms of nerf

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of nerf

Forms of nerf

Verb
third-person singular presentnerfs
present participlenerfing
past participlenerfed
pastnerfed
Noun
pluralnerfs
pluralNeRFs

Past tense of nerf: nerfed

Origin of nerf

Circa 1950s?

From the Nerf brand of toys designed as non-dangerous counterparts of existing things, such as sports balls and guns. Originally used to equate a change in the damage of a weapon in a video game to a change from real weapons to Nerf weapons.

Words formed from nerf

Phrases with nerf

Words that rhyme with nerf

3 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nerf

What does nerf mean?
Nerf means to bump lightly, whether accidentally or purposefully.
What is nerf in Thai?
Nerf in Thai is เนิร์ฟ (nə́əf). See Nerf meaning in Thai.
What part of speech is nerf?
Nerf can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce nerf?
Nerf is pronounced /nɜːf/ (UK).
What is the past tense of nerf?
The past tense of nerf is nerfed.

Words near nerf in the dictionary

  1. nereistoxins
  2. Nereju
  3. nerelimomab
  4. Neretva
  5. Nereus
  6. nerf
  7. nerf ball
  8. nerf balls
  9. nerf bar
  10. nerf bars
  11. nerf net

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nerf (page history and authors); NeRF (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-nerf.ogg.

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