gulf

Pluralgulfs

Formsgulfs, gulfing, gulfed

1. 1
   baynouncountable

   A part of an ocean or sea that extends into the land and is partly enclosed by it.

   The storm gathered strength as it crossed the warm waters of the gulf.

   Fishing boats work the cold waters of the Gulf of Alaska every summer.

   Similarbay

   Note

   In place names it is capitalized and usually leads, followed by of, as in the Gulf of Mexico; the Persian Gulf shows the other order, with the name in front. Geography uses the word broadly, from an arm of the sea reaching inland to a whole sea that the land partly closes around.

2. 2
   between groupsnounfigurativelycountable

   A difference between groups, especially a large one.

   Ten years of rising rents have widened the gulf between homeowners and renters.

   Negotiators talked through the night but could not bridge the gulf between the union and management.

   Similargap, divide, rift, chasm, split

   Note

   News writers reach for this sense when two sides stand far apart: a huge gulf in class between two football teams, a deepening gulf between the developed and developing world. It takes between, or in before the quality that differs, and the verbs around it are widen and deepen; closing one is bridging it.

3. 3
   separationnounfigurativelycountable

   A wide gap or interval that separates one thing from another.

   Across a gulf of three centuries, her letters still speak directly to modern readers.

   A gulf of silence opened between the two brothers and lasted for years.

   Similargap, chasm, distance

   Note

   The literal chasm turned into a picture of separation, often of a distance no one can cross. The King James Bible of 1611 has the classic line, "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed." The usual frame is gulf of plus whatever does the separating: a gulf of time, of centuries, of silence.

4. 4
   deep holenouncountable

   A deep hollow in the earth, such as a chasm or a sunken basin.

   The rope bridge swayed over a gulf so deep that its floor was lost in shadow.

   Loose stones broke from the cliff edge and clattered down into the gulf below.

   Similarchasm, abyss, gorge, ravine

   Note

   Greek kólpos, "bosom, gulf," lies behind this literal hollow and every other sense; it reached English through Late Latin, Italian and French and may go back to a root meaning "to curve." The hollow is at home in epic and romance, usually with a word of position: Milton's "Hell and the gulf between," Tennyson's "gulfs beneath," the darkness at the bottom of the gulf.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   Something that swallows what it takes beyond any hope of recovery, such as a whirlpool or a sucking eddy.

   Sailors gave the gulf a wide berth, knowing its spinning current could drag a small boat under.

   The failing restaurant became a gulf that swallowed every dollar her parents put into it.

   Similarwhirlpool, maelstrom, vortex

6. 6
   swallow upverbtransitive

   To swallow up or close over something completely; to engulf.

   Similarengulf, swallow

   Note

   Tennyson uses this shorter partner of engulf in In Memoriam (1850), where the sea's "roaring wells" "should gulf him fathom-deep in brine." The verb puts the swallowing whirlpool into motion: water closing over something and keeping it. In everyday prose engulf is the usual word.

7. 7
   ore depositnouncountable

   A large body of ore lying within a lode.

   Halfway along the lode, the crew broke into a gulf of silver ore far richer than anything above it.

   Assays from the new gulf persuaded the owners to sink a second shaft.

   Note

   Miners follow a lode, a vein of ore running through the surrounding rock, and in places that vein swells into an unusually large body of ore; that swelling is the gulf. Despite the "gap" meaning, a gulf in a mine is full rather than empty: striking one means finding more ore, not open space.

8. 8
   bottom of listnoun

   The bottom section of a list of students awarded a degree, made up of those who only just passed.

   The class list went up on Friday, and three of our friends found their names in the gulf.

   After a year spent on the river instead of in the library, he was lucky to land in the gulf.

   Note

   Oxbridge slang for the limbo at the foot of the class list: men "not enough to be plucked or good enough to be placed" went into the gulf, as Charles Astor Bristed wrote in Five Years in an English University (1852). They received their degrees without a class. The examiners' own heading for the section was the plainer "Degrees allowed."

9. 9
   give lowest degreeverbtransitive

   To award a degree to a student whose results were only just good enough to pass.

   The examiners threatened to gulf anyone who scraped through the final paper.

   He spent his last year rowing instead of studying and was gulfed that summer.

   Note

   Oxbridge slang that nearly always appears in the passive: a candidate was gulfed, or dreaded being gulfed. It kept company with plucked, the word for failing outright, so Charles Astor Bristed in 1852 could write of "gulfed and plucked men." Being gulfed meant landing in the gulf at the foot of the list; Macaulay himself was gulfed in the Tripos of 1822.

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