Word.ws English Dictionary

swarf

/swɔːf/US/swɔɹf/

swarf noun: the waste chips or shavings from an abrasive activity, such as metalworking, a saw cutting wood, or the use of a grindstone or whetstone.

Noun (1)

swarf (countable and uncountable, plural swarfs)

  1. (uncountable) The waste chips or shavings from an abrasive activity, such as metalworking, a saw cutting wood, or the use of a grindstone or whetstone.
    • Filings of iron, called Swarf, the barrel — — 0 [shillings] 2 [pence]1770, Samuel Baldwin, “The Package Table of Rates Outwards”, in A Survey of the British Customs; Containing the Rates of Merchandize as Established by 12 Car. II. C. 4, 11 Geo. I. C. 7, and Other...
    • The softest and almost the cleanest iron for turning for cotton and other machinery is made from wrought iron swarf (or turnings). Sometimes the swarf is worked by itself, but commonly a ball is made of good swarf, and while hot, fine swarf is thrown into the furnace, and the ball is rolled about...1866, John Henry Pepper, “Iron”, in The Playbook of Metals: Including Personal Narratives of Visits to Coal, Lead, Copper, and Tin Mines; with a Large Number of Interesting Experiments Relating to...
    Synonyms:
    turnings
  2. (countable) A particular waste chip or shaving.
    • These swarfs, especially if they are of the tin bronze type, can usually be re-melted, after passing over a magnetic separator, by adding a small percentage to each charge of the alloy issued to the foundry for melting.1940, The Metal Industry: An Illustrated Weekly Journal Dealing with Non-ferrous Metals, volume 56, London: Louis Cassier Company, →OCLC, page 456, column 1
    • Harrogate looked at the ground. A black swarf packed with small parts in a greasy mosaic.1979 May, Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, New York, N.Y.: Random House; republished as Suttree (Vintage Contemporaries), 1st Vintage International edition, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, 1986, →ISBN, page...

Verb (1)

swarf (third-person singular simple present swarfs, present participle swarfing, simple past and past participle swarfed)

  1. (transitive) To grind down.
    • A machine for swarfing the joining edges of parts or sub-assemblies having compound angle surfaces is announced by the Rockford Machine Tool Co., Rockford, 111.1958, “Rockford Hydraulic Swarfing Machine”, in Machinery, volume 65, part 2, New York, N.Y.: Industrial Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 160, column 1
    • Hydraulic mill is used for swarfing the joining edges of parts or sub-assemblies with compound surfaces.1959, Aircraft and Missiles Manufacturing, volume 2, Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Company, →OCLC, page 114, column 1

Verb (2)

swarf (third-person singular simple present swarfs, present participle swarfing, simple past and past participle swarfed)

  1. (Scotland, intransitive, obsolete) To grow languid; to faint.
    • Meg, rinnin like a flae in blanket, / Her coats upon a lang nail hanket, / That gart her coup the creels [i.e., fall head over heels] an' ſqueel, / "Ah! Sirce, I'm gruppet by a de'il!" / An' as ſhe near the threſhold lay, / Wae's me! ſhe near hand ſwarf'd away!1796, “G.” [i.e., Richard Gall], “The Tint Quey;^([sic – meaning Cow]) or Thrawart Maggy”, in Archibald Steel, Richard Gall, The Twa Cuckolds; and The Tint Quey, or Thrawart Maggy. Two Tales, in the...
    • Moreover, the evil reputation of the master, and his strange and doubtful end, or at least, sudden disappearance, prevented any, excepting the most desperate of men, to seek any advice or opinion from the servant; wherefore, the poor vermin was likely at first to swarf for very hunger.1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC...

Noun (2)

swarf (plural swarfs)

  1. (obsolete) A faint or swoon.
    • And when they had ſo continued feaſting for a ſhort time, they had been ſo ſerved before, and the food was ſo rare and excellent, that they fell into a ſwarf, and cried out, Cant[icle of Canticles] ii. 4, 5. 'He hath brought me into the banqueting-houſe, and his banner over me was love. O ſtay me...1795, John Adamson, The Loss and Recovery of Elect Sinners: With the Difficulty of Their Coming Back Again to Glory. Methodically Held Forth under the Similitude of Captives Ransomed and Returning...

Examples of swarf in a sentence

  • The softest and almost the cleanest iron for turning for cotton and other machinery is made from wrought iron swarf (or turnings).1866, John Henry Pepper, “Iron”, in The Playbook of Metals: Including Personal Narratives of Visits to Coal, Lead, Copper, and Tin Mines...
  • As sandpaper is pushed across wood, the abrasive grains dig into the surface and cut out minute shavings, which are called swarf in industry jargon.2004, Strother Purdy, “Making Sense of Sandpaper”, in Traditional Finishing Techniques (The New Best of Fine Woodworking), Newtown, Conn....
  • Turning of the internal features of horn antennas is an operation where particular attention must be paid to swarf control.2008, Christophe Granet, Graeme L. James, A. Ross Forsyth, “Aperture Antennas: Waveguides and Horns”, in Constantine A. Balanis, editor...
  • This weakend^([sic – meaning weakened]) layer is swarfed off by rubbing of chip, consequently, severe cratering is manifested on tool face after total cutting time Tc.1976, Bulletin of the Japan Society of Precision Engineering, Tokyo: Japan Society of Precision Engineering, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 90, column...

Synonyms of swarf

Forms of swarf

Noun
pluralswarfs
Verb
third-person singular presentswarfs
present participleswarfing
past participleswarfed
pastswarfed

Origin of swarf

From Middle English *swarf, *swerf, from Old English ġeswearf, ġesweorf (“iron filings; rust”) and/or Old Norse svarf (“metallic dust”), both from Proto-Germanic *swarbą (“that which is rubbed off; shavings”), from Proto-Germanic *swerbaną (“to mop, wipe; to rub off”); see further at swerve. The word is cognate to Old English sweorfan (“to rub, scour; to file”).

From Middle English swarven, swerven (“to go; to deviate, turn aside; to stagger, be unsteady; to swerve”), from Old English sweorfan (“to wipe; to polish; to rub, scour; to file”), from Proto-Germanic *swerbaną (“to mop, wipe; to rub off”). The word is cognate to Middle Dutch swerven (“to rove; to stray”) (whence Dutch zwerven (“to roam”)), Low German swarven (“to rove; to stray; to riot”), Old Norse svarfa (“to sweep; to be agitated, upset”), Norwegian svarva (“to agitate”), sverva (“to whirl”). See swerve.

Words formed from swarf

Words that rhyme with swarf

Questions about swarf

What does swarf mean?
Swarf means the waste chips or shavings from an abrasive activity, such as metalworking, a saw cutting wood, or the use of a grindstone or whetstone.
How do you use swarf in a sentence?
The softest and almost the cleanest iron for turning for cotton and other machinery is made from wrought iron swarf (or turnings).
What part of speech is swarf?
Swarf can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce swarf?
Swarf is pronounced /swɔːf/ (UK).
What is the plural of swarf?
The plural of swarf is swarfs.

Words near swarf in the dictionary

  1. swarees
  2. swares
  3. swarest
  4. Swarey
  5. Swareys
  6. swarf
  7. swarf-penny
  8. swarfed
  9. Swarfega
  10. swarfing
  11. swarfs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swarf (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-swarf.wav.

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