smurf

Meaning

Noun

1. A blue pixie with a white stocking cap, from the media franchise The Smurfs.
2. (Internet) A smurf account or its user.
3. A smurf attack.
4. (slang) One member of a team, each of whom acquires a small amount of money or ingredients for manufacturing drugs, keeping the transactions too small in order to not raise suspicion.

Verb

1. (slang) Used to replace any other verb, as is typical of smurfs.
2. To split a large financial transaction into smaller ones so as to avoid scrutiny; to carry out structuring.
3. (transitive) To carry out a smurf attack against someone.
4. (Internet) To use a smurf account.
5. (Internet, broadly, intransitive, transitive) To use a smurf account.

Synonyms

cop

👮

police officer

👮

sinkhole

police

👮

Translations

Schlumpf

puffo

smurf

estrumpfe

Schtroumpf

pitufo

schtroumpfer

schtroumpf

şirin

barrufet

Puffo

Auge des Gesetzes

schlumpf

Pronounced as (IPA)

/smɜːf/

Etymology

Cognate with French: -

In summary

Borrowed from Dutch smurf (via the Belgian comic De Smurfen, a translation of French Les Schtroumpfs), from French schtroumpf, a word that was created by Peyo based on German Strumpf (literally “stocking, sock”) while he was having dinner, either simply because it sounds funny to the French ear or based on a regional German use for “idiot”. Armand van Raalte was an employee for the Belgian publisher of Peyo's stories who felt that schtroumpf would not have the same effect in Dutch, so he tried to find a simple word that could be used both as a noun and a verb. The result was smurf. In other languages, the term was similarly altered; compare the translations below.