terf

T1E1R1F4
US/tɝf/Australia, UK/tɜːf/Scotland/tɛɾf/New Zealand, Wales/tøːf/

noun

A trans-exclusionary radical feminist; a radical feminist who does not consider trans women to be women, or thinks they should not be included in female spaces or organisations, and who considers trans men to be women; a person whose transphobia is expressed in feminist terms.

“TERF1, TERF2”

Scrabble 7

Meanings

terf1

nounterf (plural terfs)

plural terfs

  1. rareRare spelling of taraf.

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:terf.

terf2

nounterf (plural terfs)

plural terfs

  1. Alternative letter-case form of TERF.

TERF3

nounTERF (plural TERFs)

plural TERFs · alternative terf

  1. A trans-exclusionary radical feminist; a radical feminist who does not consider trans women to be women, or thinks they should not be included in female spaces or organisations, and who considers trans men to be women; a person whose transphobia is expressed in feminist terms.

    Perhaps the sheer nastiness of TERFs comes from the fact that they don’t just know they’ve lost; they know they were on the wrong side from the beginning.

    2014, Roz Kaveney, "Woman Enough, The Advocate, 16 July 2014
    5 more examples

    Dear “A Lesbian Democrat” Your TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) agenda and what it represents is no better than the bigoted regressive agenda of the religious right.

    2013, Toni Browning-Early, letter to the editor, QNotes, Volume 28, Number 6, 19 July - 1 August 2013, page 4

    At the further extreme TERF’s^([sic]) actively promote the message that banning trans women from feminist gathering implies—that trans women are not really women at all.

    2013 December, Rachel Eliason, “Wired This Way”, in ACCESSline, volume 27, number 12, page 13

    Although some TERFs attend the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, none of my interviewees or other land-women have identified as a TERF, nor have any TERFs, to my knowledge, ever lived on women's land.

    2018, Keridwen N. Luis, Herlands: Exploring the Women's Land Movement in the United States

    The point here isn't that some TERFs aren’t XX and some Nazis aren’t “purely” white (an imaginary category); it’s that their bigotry rests on assumptions about biology and genetics which are scientifically lazy, as if you can “see” race and gender in a meaningful yet simplistic and binary way.

    2019, Morgan Lev Edward Holleb, The A–Z of Gender and Sexuality: From Ace to Ze, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, →ISBN, page 252

    That Rowling used terms like “gender critical” (the preferred descriptor of TERFs rather than, well, TERF); that she believes laws that enable trans people to use the bathrooms and changing rooms that match their gender identity will “open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside,” which she says is the “simple truth” but is not backed up by any evidence whatsoever; and that she paints the movement for trans rights as one that is “doing demonstrable harm” to women and girls and is “offering cover to predators like few before it” is proof enough of what her views are and who she aligns herself with, for all of her protestations that she has trans friends and cares about the safety of trans women.

    2020 June 10, Esther Wang, “For the Love of God, Please Make J.K. Rowling Stop”, in Jezebel, archived from the original on 10 Nov 2022

    Synonyms: FART, GC, GCF, gendercrit, gendercritter, terven · Antonyms: TIRF, transfeminist

TERF4

nounTERF (countable and uncountable, plural TERFs)

plural TERFs · alternative terf

  1. abbreviationcountableuncountablesciencesAbbreviation of telomeric repeat-binding factor.

    TERF1, TERF2

    1 more example

    […] another protein, TERF2, binds at the 5'-terminus and fixes the telomere end at the tail. […] The figure schematically shows domain structure of TERF1. […] Interaction of this protein with nucleic acid requires polypeptide dimerization, which involves the TERF domain [12].

    2004, Biochemistry (Moscow), volume 69, issues 1-4, page 118
  2. USabbreviationcountableuncountablegovernmentAbbreviation of terrain flight (“flight close to the ground, to avoid enemy detection or fire”).

    A MAWTS qualified TERF instructor is required for all TERF instructional sorties.

    1980, United States Marine Corps, Aviation training and readiness manual
    1 more example

    […] Typical TERF altitudes for Navy and Marine Corps helicopters include low level (approximately 100 ft AGL), contour (50 ft AGL), and nap of the earth (NOE) (less than 50 ft AGL). A depiction of typical TERF modes in presented in Figure 3.

    2003 October 12-16, The 22nd Digital Avionics Systems Conference : Proceedings : Indianapolis, IN, volume 2

Synonyms & antonyms

nounA trans-exclusionary radical feminist; a radical feminist who does not consider trans women to be women, or thinks they should not be included in female spaces or organisations, and who considers trans men to be women; a person whose transphobia is expressed in feminist terms.

Origin

TERF · noun

Acronym of trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The earliest recorded use is from 2008 by trans-inclusive cisgender radical feminist Viv Smythe.

Full word history & related roots →

TERF · noun

Abbreviation.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

French TERF
  • TERFtrans-exclusionary radical feminist
Spanish TERF, terfa
  • TERFtrans-exclusionary radical feminist
  • terfatrans-exclusionary radical feminist

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with terf

All rhymes →

Sounds the same

turf (fern–fir–fur merger)turf (fern–fir–fur merger)

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

terf. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/terf

MLA

“terf.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/terf. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “terf,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/terf.

Source: terf on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.