Word.ws English Dictionary

tharf

UK/ˈθɑː(ɹ)f/

tharf adjective: stiff, unsocial, rough in manner.

Adjective

tharf (comparative more tharf, superlative most tharf)

  1. (UK, obsolete, regional) Stiff, unsocial, rough in manner.
    • a tharf person

Verb

tharf (third-person singular simple present tharfs, present participle tharfing, simple past and past participle tharfed)

  1. (UK, obsolete, regional) to need

Forms of tharf

Adjective
comparativemore tharf
superlativemost tharf
Verb
third-person singular presenttharfs
present participletharfing
past participletharfed
pasttharfed

Origin of tharf

From Middle English therf, from Old English þeorf (“unleavened, fresh, skim”), from Proto-West Germanic *þerb, from Proto-Germanic *þerbaz (“unleavened, simple”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terbh-, *(s)trebh- (“rigid, stiff, tight”). Cognate with German derb (“rough, coarse, rude”), Old Frisian therve, Middle Dutch derf.

From English tharf, conjugated form of tharen, from Proto-West Germanic *þurban, from Proto-Indo-European *terp- (“to satisfy”). Cognate with German dürfen (“may, to be allowed to; must”) and Ancient Greek τέρπω (térpō, “to delight”).

Words formed from tharf

Words that rhyme with tharf

Questions about tharf

What does tharf mean?
Tharf means stiff, unsocial, rough in manner.
What part of speech is tharf?
Tharf can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce tharf?
Tharf is pronounced /ˈθɑː(ɹ)f/ (UK).

Words near tharf in the dictionary

  1. tharcake
  2. tharcakes
  3. thardcake
  4. thardcakes
  5. thare
  6. tharf
  7. tharf-cake
  8. tharf-cakes
  9. Thargelia
  10. Thargelion
  11. tharid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tharf (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: “tharf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tharf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.