Word of the day · Sunday, October 25, 2026

turf

noun and verb

Grass together with the layer of soil held by its roots. Also an area someone treats as their own territory. As a British verb, turf out means to throw someone out.

Where it comes from

Old English turf, from a Germanic root shared with Dutch turf, which means peat.

Worth knowing

In Ireland and parts of Britain, turf also means cut peat burned as fuel. In horse racing, the turf means the sport itself, after the grass tracks it is run on.

By the letters

• 4letters
• 1vowels (A E I O U)
• noneuncommon letters
• 4different letters

Playing it

TURF is a four-letter word with one vowel, a good way to spend an F and an awkward U together. It takes an S and also extends to TURFY.

Hooks

One letter added to make a new word (what is a hook), at the end: TURFS, TURFY.

One letter away

Words you get by changing a single letter, the steps of a word ladder.

• curf
• surf
• terf
• tuff
• turm
• turn
• turr
• zurf

In Unsaid

TURF was word of the day number 7 in Unsaid, a falling-letter word game where every player gets the same word on the same date. As a word it scores 250 points. Under the current rules, spelling it as the word of the day is worth a bonus of 8,500 reading down or 6,375 reading across, before any streak. How the bonus works.