Etymograph

English

kerf

Kerf comes from Middle English kerf ‘the act of cutting or carving’, from Proto-Germanic *kurbiz ‘a cut’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- ‘to scratch’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*gerbʰ-1‘to scratch’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*kurbiz1‘a cut’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*kurbi1reconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150cyrf1‘an act of cutting, a cutting off’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500kerf1‘the act of cutting or carving’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1941kerf1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English kerf
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1941, Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: “Sebastian, still not alone, is seated on the white-and-cinder-grey…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*gerbʰ-Wiktionary, English kerf‘to scratch’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*kurbizWiktionary, English kerf‘a cut’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*kurbiWiktionary, English kerfreconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150cyrfWiktionary, English kerf‘an act of cutting, a cutting off’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500kerfWiktionary, English kerf‘the act of cutting or carving’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1941kerfWiktionary, English kerf. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1941, Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: “Sebastian, still not alone, is seated on the white-and-cinder-grey…”

The story

Related also to Dutch kerf, German Low German Karve, Karv, German Kerbe.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- ‘to scratch’

photo, graphic, cinema, grammar, crawl, crab, graffiti, graft, carve, graphite, graphene, demography, crawfish, grimoire, ultrasonography, epigraph, epigram, sonography, 81 more

Today it means

noun The act of cutting or carving something; a stroke or slice.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “kerf”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- / kerf

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