scurf

• IPA^(key): /skɜː(ɹ)f/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)f

From Middle English [Term?], from Old English sceorf, from Proto-Germanic *skurf- (“to gnaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Cognate with Dutch schurft, German Schorf, Danish skurv, Swedish skorv.

scurf (countable and uncountable, plural scurfs)

1. A skin disease.
2. The flakes of skin that fall off as a result of a skin disease.

   Synonym: dandruff

3. Any crust-like formations on the skin, or in general.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 670–673:

     There ſtood a Hill not far whoſe frieſly top / Belch'd fire and rowling ſmoak; the reſt entire / Shon with a gloſſie ſcurff, undoubted ſign / That in his womb was hid metallic Ore,

4. (figuratively) The foul remains of anything adherent.

   Synonym: scum

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Sixth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, line 1011, page 392:

     The Scurf is worn away, of each committed Crime

5. (botany) Minute membranous scales on the surface of some leaves, as in the goosefoot.[1]
6. (obsolete, slang) A low, mean person.

• (low, mean person): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

scurf (plural scurfs)

1. A grey bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus).

• “scurf”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• curfs