different between wharf vs breastfast

English

Etymology

From Middle English wharf, from Old English hwearf (“heap, embankment, wharf”); related to Old English hweorfan (“to turn”), Old Saxon hwerf (whence German Werft), Dutch werf, Old High German hwarb (“a turn”), hwerban (“to turn”), Old Norse hvarf (“circle”), and Ancient Greek ?????? (karpós, “wrist”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: wôrf, IPA^(key): /w??f/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: wôf, IPA^(key): /w??f/
• (without the wine–whine merger) enPR: hwôrf, IPA^(key): /hw??f/.

In New Zealand, even those who distinguish wine and whine are likely to pronounce as /w??f/.

• Rhymes: -??(?)f

Noun

wharf (plural wharves or wharfs)

1. A man-made landing place for ships on a shore or river bank.
   • 1834-1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.

     Commerce pushes its wharves into the sea.

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott

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

2. The bank of a river, or the shore of the sea.

Synonyms

• (landing place): dock; quay

Hyponyms

• (landing place): jetty; pier; staithe, staith (Northern England)

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

wharf (third-person singular simple present wharfs, present participle wharfing, simple past and past participle wharfed)

1. (transitive) To secure by a wharf.
2. (transitive) To place on a wharf.

See also

• dock

Middle English

Alternative forms

• wherf, wharfe, warrf, wharghfe

Etymology

From Old English hwearf.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?arf/

Noun

wharf (plural wharves)

1. wharf

Derived terms

• wharfage

Descendants

• English: wharf
• Scots: wharf

References

• “wharf, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-12-12.

English

Etymology

breast +? fast

Noun

breastfast (plural breastfasts)

1. (nautical) A large rope to fasten the midship part of a ship to a wharf or to another vessel.