scarf

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A piece of cloth worn around the neck or head for warmth or decoration.

   She wrapped a wool scarf around her neck before going out.

2. 2
   verb

   To eat something very quickly.

   He scarfed down the whole pizza in minutes.

Generally thought to be a variant, attested since the 1950s, of scoff (“eat (quickly)”) (of which scorf is another attested variant), itself a variant of scaff. Sometimes alternatively suggested to be a dialectal survival of Old English scearfian, sceorfan (“gnaw, bite”) (compare scurf).

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