SSKIN

Noun

surface (plural surfaces)

1. The external boundary of an object or body.
2. The overside or upside of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
   • A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,[…].1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
3. The outside hull of a tangible object.
   • Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.2013 May 11, “The climate of Tibet: Pole-land”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8835, page 80
4. (figuratively) Outward or external appearance.
   • On the surface, the spy looked like a typical businessman.
5. The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a space of more than two dimensions.
6. (crosswording) The story or image suggested by a cryptic clue, when read as a whole sentence without considering wordplay.
   • The surface is clearly about people like you and me, those whose better days are behind us and who now shop at M&S.2010 May 3, Sandy Balfour, “Beginner's guide to solving cryptic crosswords”, in The Guardian

See all 15 meanings of surface