golf

Pronunciation: /ɡɒlf/

The English word “golf” has 3 meanings listed here.

noun

A ball game played by individuals competing against one another in which the object is to hit a ball into each of a series of (usually 18 or nine) holes in the minimum number of strokes.

verb

To play the game of golf.
To write something in as few characters as possible (e.g. in code golf, regex golf)

Etymology

The word is first known in English from the 17th century as a borrowing from Middle Scots golf, gouff. Although the etymology is uncertain, the most likely origin is that it comes from the Middle Dutch colve, colf (“club”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *kulbaz (“club”), related to German Kolben (“piston, rod”), Swedish kolv (“piston, rod”), Old English clopp (“rock; cliff”), English kelp.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.