1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. wharf

Find the word definition

What is "wharf"

Crossword clues for wharf

wharf
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wharf
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ For a minute or more he lived in the room above the wharf.
▪ It was high tide and on the wharf the swing-bridge was open to allow a toy ship to enter the toy-town dry-dock.
▪ The Don Eusebio crunched into the Zamboanga wharf at noon, four hours behind schedule.
▪ The oil spread to the plaintiff's wharf where welding was taking place.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wharf

Wharf \Wharf\, n.; pl. Wharfsor Wharves. [AS. hwerf, hwearf, a returning, a change, from hweorfan to turn, turn about, go about; akin to D. werf a wharf, G. werft, Sw. varf a shipbuilder's yard, Dan. verft wharf, dockyard, G. werben to enlist, to engage, woo, OHG. werban to turn about, go about, be active or occupied, Icel. hverfa to turn, Goth. hwa['i]rban, hwarb[=o]n, to walk. Cf. Whirl.]

  1. A structure or platform of timber, masonry, iron, earth, or other material, built on the shore of a harbor, river, canal, or the like, and usually extending from the shore to deep water, so that vessels may lie close alongside to receive and discharge cargo, passengers, etc.; a quay; a pier.

    Commerce pushes its wharves into the sea.
    --Bancroft.

    Out upon the wharfs they came, Knight and burgher, lord and dame.
    --Tennyson.

    Note: The this word is generally written wharves in the United States, and wharfs in England; but many recent English writers use wharves.

  2. [AS. hwearf.] The bank of a river, or the shore of the sea. [Obs.] ``The fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf.'' --Shak. Wharf boat, a kind of boat moored at the bank of a river, and used for a wharf, in places where the height of the water is so variable that a fixed wharf would be useless. [U. S.] --Bartlett. Wharf rat. (Zo["o]l.)

    1. The common brown rat.

    2. A neglected boy who lives around the wharfs. [Slang]

Wharf

Wharf \Wharf\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wharfed; p. pr. & vb. n. Wharfing.]

  1. To guard or secure by a firm wall of timber or stone constructed like a wharf; to furnish with a wharf or wharfs.

  2. To place upon a wharf; to bring to a wharf.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wharf

late Old English hwearf "shore, bank where ships can tie up," earlier "dam, embankment," from Proto-Germanic *hwarfaz (cognates: Middle Low German werf "mole, dam, wharf," German Werft "shipyard, dockyard"); related to Old English hwearfian "to turn," perhaps in a sense implying "busy activity," from PIE root *kwerp- "to turn, revolve" (cognates: Old Norse hverfa "to turn round," German werben "to enlist, solicit, court, woo," Gothic hvairban "to wander," Greek kartos "wrist," Sanskrit surpam "winnowing fan"). Wharf rat is from 1812 as "type of rat common on ships and docks;" extended sense "person who hangs around docks" is recorded from 1836.

Wiktionary
wharf

n. 1 A man-made landing place for ships on a shore or river bank. 2 The bank of a river, or the shore of the sea.

Related phrases:
WordNet
wharf

  1. n. a platform built out from the shore into the water and supported by piles; provides access to ships and boats [syn: pier, wharfage, dock]

  2. [also: wharves (pl)]

wharf

  1. v. provide with a wharf; "Wharf the mouth of the river"

  2. store on a wharf; "Wharf the merchandise"

  3. discharge at a wharf; "wharf the passengers"

  4. come into or dock at a wharf; "the big ship wharfed in the evening" [syn: moor, berth]

  5. moor at a wharf; "The ship was wharfed"

  6. [also: wharves (pl)]

Related phrases:
Gazetteer
Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Wharf

A wharf, quay (, also or ), staith or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbor or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths ( mooring locations), and may also include piers, warehouses, or other facilities necessary for handling the ships.

Wharf (disambiguation)

A wharf is a fixed platform where ships are loaded and unloaded.

Wharf or Wharfe may also refer to:

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "wharf".

The wharf guards are so used to seeing me shuffle past, they would not notice if Abri turned tumbles under my coat.

Men came out from stores and counting houses, eager to have a hand in forestalling the embargo, and worked, adrip with perspiration, alongside stevedores and wharf rats and seamen and teamsters and farmers.

Stonehampton, among the low wharves and wooden warehouses, which stood along the flat banks, jumbled up with streets and ferries, queer one-storied shops and verandahed dwelling-houses, closed in with yellow alamandas, passion fruit, and orange begonias.

They were indeed the same dark folk who had shanghaied Carter on their noisome galley so long ago, and whose kith he had seen driven in herds about the unclean wharves of that accursed lunar city, with the leaner ones toiling and the fatter ones taken away in crates for other needs of their polypous and amorphous masters.

They coasted in toward the wharf between the two landing craft, and Aragon threw the lines up to the waiting soldiers.

The short drop downriver to the loading wharf at Woolwich passed off uneventfully, and Lieutenant Kaye by what miracle no one knew was there before them, and had bespoke a berth and loaders, even a launch to help tow and nudge the Biter in, all sail doused beforehand, no need for kedges, all smart and shipshape enough for the greatest stickler in the land.

The Biter was alongside the rigging wharf, starboard side to, and almost without a conscious intention he crossed the deck, swung legs across the bulwarks, and clambered down on to the dockside That Sam Holt had betrayed him he would not believe.

Though I now wore no chains on the wharves I was still, of course, in a sense chained in my bondage.

A male slave, his wrists chained, separated by some eighteen inches of linked metal, pushing a wharf cart passed me.

The wounded ship would prove a difficult debarkation, given its angle against the broken dock, and the second ship moving in would have only a narrow channel upon which to gain access to the crushed wharf.

Ask for Captain Van Deef at 2204 Second Wharf Road, London, after 9:00 a.

With tattered sails, our two ships limped up the mist-covered Exe to the wharf.

He goes through the crowded thoroughfares, through cluttered places, through factories, hotels, wharves, sits in railway trains, and the glare and tumult and pulsation, the engines and locomotives and cranes, the whole mad phantasmagoria of the modern city, evoke images in him, inflame him to reproduce them in all their weight and gianthood and mass, their blackness and luridness and power.

She bent to retrieve her offspring, who had been hanging over the edge of the wharf, peacefully exploring its underside, and hoicked him up onto one hip.

I was desired to build the wharves and breakwater at Hyla I found to my dismay that my Greek was no good to me, no good at all, and I was obliged to employ a dragoman at every turn.