Word.ws English Dictionary

Sarf London

UK/ˈsɑːf ˌlʌn.dən/

Sarf London proper noun: south London.

Proper noun

Sarf London

  1. (UK, nonstandard) South London
    • Nigel Kennedy, the English violinist, is noted for having acquired a working-class “Sarf London” speech in early adulthood, overcoming the heritage of an elite education as a gifted child at the Yehudi Menuhin school, in the course of which he was exposed to continuous input of RP.1995, Kevin Durkin, “Language Development II: Social Dimensions of Acquisition and Use”, in Developmental social psychology: from infancy to old age, →ISBN, page 248
    • Their stance as the most honest band in the world was offset by some nagging doubts: even some of their true believers felt that Strummer (real name John Mellors) came from too privileged a background to be genuinely angry, while Jones’s ‘Sarf London’ accent was considered suspect.2003, Peter Buckley, editor, The Rough Guide to Rock, →ISBN, page 203

Origin of Sarf London

Pronunciation spelling of south, representing a th-fronting South London accent.

Questions about Sarf London

What does Sarf London mean?
Sarf London means south London.
What part of speech is Sarf London?
Sarf London is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Sarf London?
Sarf London is pronounced /ˈsɑːf ˌlʌn.dən/ (UK).

Words near Sarf London in the dictionary

  1. Sarel
  2. Sares
  3. Sarey
  4. Sarez
  5. Sarez Lake
  6. Sarf London
  7. Sarff
  8. Sarffs
  9. sargability
  10. sargable
  11. Sargans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Sarf London (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.

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