graft

• graff

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɹɑːft/
• (US, Northern England) IPA^(key): /ɡɹæft/

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• Rhymes: -ɑːft, -æft

From Middle English graffe, from Old French greffe (“stylus”), from Latin graphium (“stylus”), from Ancient Greek γραφείον (grapheíon), from γράφειν (gráphein, “to write”); probably akin to English carve. So named from the resemblance of a scion or shoot to a pointed pencil. Doublet of graphium. Compare graphic, grammar.

graft (countable and uncountable, plural grafts)

1. (countable) A small shoot or scion of a tree inserted in another tree, the stock of which is to support and nourish it. The two unite and become one tree, but the graft determines the kind of fruit.
2. (countable) A branch or portion of a tree growing from such a shoot.
3. (surgery, countable) A portion of living tissue used in the operation of autoplasty.

graft (third-person singular simple present grafts, present participle grafting, simple past and past participle grafted)

1. (transitive) To insert (a graft) in a branch or stem of another tree; to propagate by insertion in another stock; also, to insert a graft upon.
2. (intransitive) To insert scions (grafts) from one tree, or kind of tree, etc., into another; to practice grafting.
3. (transitive, surgery) To implant a portion of (living flesh or akin) in a lesion so as to form an organic union.
4. (transitive) To join (one thing) to another as if by grafting, so as to bring about a close union.
   • 1717, Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard.:

     And graft my love immortal on thy fame!

   • 2012 March 30, Joe Levy, “Rockers at Sea”, in The New York Times‎:

     Of course, this was a music cruise, a floating rock festival grafted onto a passenger ship, and a quietly thriving corner of the music and cruise industries.

5. (transitive, nautical) To cover, as a ring bolt, block strap, splicing, etc., with a weaving of small cord or rope yarns.
6. (chemistry) To form a graft polymer

• (to join as if by grafting): affix, attach, put together, unite, imp; see also Thesaurus:join

• graft the forked tree

From Middle Dutch graft (“canal”), from graven (“dig”).[1] The contemporary senses “depth of digging blade” and “narrow spade” may have a separate history, but this is uncertain. Compare Old Norse grǫft (“the action of digging”).[2] Attested from the 17th century.

graft (plural grafts)

1. (obsolete) A ditch, a canal.
2. The depth of the blade of a digging tool such as a spade or shovel.
   • 1798 [1792], Memoirs of Science and the Arts‎, Transactions of the Society instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, page 117:

     […] in the first operation, we dug through the peat, the hard sand, and gravel, and one spade's graft (about nine inches deep, and seven inches wide) into the quick sand, the whole length of this drain, […]

3. A narrow spade used in digging drainage trenches.

• grafting tool

Uncertain. Some lexicographers suggest an extended use of Etymology 2, above, expanding from “digging” to work more generally,[3] and from there to dishonest work.[4] Others, however, suggest an extension from Etymology 1, shifting from “a shoot or scion” to the notion of corruption through the idea of excrescence.[5]

graft (countable and uncountable, plural grafts)

1. (uncountable) Corruption in official life.
2. (uncountable) Illicit profit by corrupt means, especially in public life.
3. (uncountable, slang) A criminal’s special branch of practice.
4. (countable) A con job.
5. (countable, slang) A cut of the take (money).
6. (uncountable, US, politics) A bribe, especially on an ongoing basis.
   • 1910, O.R. Miller, The Reform Bulletin:

     If policemen take graft now from the liquor dealers for the privilege of keeping open on Sunday, what is to prevent them, if this bill is passed, from taking graft from the liquor men for the privilege of selling liquor before 1 p.m. on Sunday […] ?

7. (uncountable, British, colloquial) Work; labor requiring effort.

   We had to put in a lot of hard graft to get the job done.

   • 2022 August 16, Pippa Crerar, quoting Liz Truss, “Leaked audio reveals Liz Truss said British workers needed ‘more graft’”, in The Guardian‎:

     Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.

8. (countable, British, colloquial) A job or trade.

graft (third-person singular simple present grafts, present participle grafting, simple past and past participle grafted)

1. (colloquial, intransitive) To work hard.
2. To obtain illegal gain from bribery or similar corrupt practices.

• grafter (“grifter”)

• grift

• “graft”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC. See supplements.

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graft f (plural graften, diminutive graftje n)

1. (chiefly Holland) Obsolete form of gracht (“canal”).

graft n (plural graften, diminutive graftje n)

1. Obsolete form of gracht (“grave”).

Borrowed from Dutch graft.

graft c (plural graften, diminutive graftsje)

1. Alternative form of grêft.