bodysurfv.
/ˈbɒdɪsəːf/, U.S. /ˈbɑdiˌsərf/ intransitive. To ride a breaking wave (or occasionally a river current) without a surfboard, usually by holding the body rigid.
ΚΠ
1935 T. Blake Hawaiian Surfboard ii. 43 As a boy, Duke ‘body-surfed’ and swam the crawl stroke before the world had a name for it.
1939 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 21 Feb. 7 d/4 I went body-surfing at Makupuu with Walter Macfarlane, one of the most skillful men at the sport in the territory.
1967 Time 29 Dec. 16/1 Holt fished from the rocks, body-surfed in the great Pacific waves that pound southern Australia's Morning Peninsula.
1970 J. Dickey Deliverance iii. 151 Body-surfing and skidding along, I realized that we could never have got through this stretch in canoes.
2014 M. Poland Keeper iii. 23 She could body surf. She could swim. She could drink.
Derivatives
ˈbodysurfer n.
ΚΠ
1935 T. Blake Hawaiian Surfboard ii. 43 I can say Duke is the world's outstanding body-surfer.
1939 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 21 Feb. 7 d/4 Little waves won't do... Body-surfers scorn them and wouldn't be caught in them.
1963 B. Farrelly in J. Pollard Austral. Surfrider i. 14/1 Most beaches have special areas marked out for board riders, so keep clear of the sections reserved for body surfers.
2001 Independent 18 Aug. (Time Off section) 1/3 By July, the sea is warm enough to swim in and Fire Island becomes a body-surfer's paradise.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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v.1935