different between wharfie vs wharf

English

Etymology

From wharf +? -ie.

Pronunciation

Noun

wharfie (plural wharfies)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, informal, colloquial) A wharf labourer or stevedore.
   • 1952, Neville Shute, The Far Country, London: Heinemann, Chapter Nine,^[1]

     “It’s a twenty-four-hour stoppage,” he said. “The wharfies went to the Arbitration Court for another pound a week for something or other, and they didn’t get it, so they’ve stopped work for a day to show their displeasure […] ”

   • 2000, David Crookes, Someday Soon, unnumbered page,

     One night, soon after the battle of the Coral Sea, the US transport ship Shenandoah steamed up the Brisbane River to the wharves at Hamilton. She tied up just before eleven o?clock and at midnight a fresh shift of wharfies began unloading her cavernous holds.

   • 2008, Andrew Faulkner, Arthur Blackburn, VC: An Australian Hero, His Men, and Their Two World Wars, page 152,

     But a group of wharfies rushed the ballot box, opened it, and ripped up some voting slips and threw others over a fence.

   • 2009, Kim Edward Beazley, Father of the House: The Memoirs of Kim E. Beazley, page 131,

     In Fremantle the wharfies were crucial to my preselection. Gordon Harris was the secretary of the Fremantle wharfies, and we got on amicably until he decided to stand against me in 1958.

Synonyms

• stevedore (UK)
• docker
• dockworker
• longshoreman (US)

Translations

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.