Surface

Pronunciation

• IPA: ˈsɜːfɪs

Origin

From French surface.

Noun

1. The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter Foreword, A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away, ….
2. The outside hull of a tangible object.
• 2013-05-11, The climate of Tibet: Pole-land, Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.
• 2013-07-20, Welcome to the plastisphere, researchers noticed many of their pieces of marine debris sported surface pits around two microns across.
3. (figurative) Outward or external appearance.On the surface, the spy looked like a typical businessman.
• V. KnoxVain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface.
4. (mathematics, geometry) The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
5. (fortification) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.

Synonyms

• overside
• superfice archaic

Derived terms

• surface mail
• surficial

Full definition of surface

Verb

1. (transitive) To provide something with a surface.
2. (transitive) To apply a surface to something.
3. (intransitive) To rise to the surface.
4. (intransitive) To come out of hiding.
5. (intransitive) For information or facts to become known.
6. (intransitive) To work a mine near the surface.
7. (intransitive) To appear or be found.