ゴルファー gorufā Golfer
ゴルファー (gorufā), golfer, is the English word in katakana, and a 1925 dictionary of words born from English has it five years before the national dictionary's first citation.
Abstract
ゴルファー, gorufā, golfer, is the English word written in katakana. The national dictionary first cites it from a novel of 1930; a 1925 dictionary of modern words born from English already has it, and from 1929 the essay collections of Shimomura Kainan carry it book after book.
Overview
The sense. A person who plays golf. The word is a katakana loanword.
The words. ゴルファー gorufā: デジタル大辞泉 ゴルフをする人, a person who plays golf; 精選版日本国語大辞典 the same, from English golfer, first cited from Hosoda Tamiki's novel 真理の春 of 1930, 眼の下のゴルフ・リンクに、ゴルファの自動車を運ぶ道, the road that carries the golfers' cars to the links below [1].
The text in English. Golfer and ゴルファー are one word in two scripts.
The historical record
1925. Before the dictionary's date. A dictionary of modern words born from English, compiled by the Osaka Mainichi's English-study staff, has the entry ゴルファー(Golfer)ゴルフ戯をする人, a person who plays the game of golf, in 1925, five years before the citation the national dictionary gives [2][1]. It is the oldest book the full-text search lists with the word [3].
1929 to 1939. Shimomura Kainan. In 1929 Shimomura Kainan can joke that ゴルファーは馬鹿に早起をする, golfers get up absurdly early, and that 親爺のゴルフには年中休暇がない, father's golf has no holidays all year [4]; nine of the 29 books the full-text search lists with the word, of the 50 it counts, are his essay collections of 1929 to 1939 [3].
What is not a source. The English is the source, and in Japanese the word has no author.
Today. What a rendering keeps is the katakana, which marks the word as the English one.
A reading
ゴルファー is what it looks like, the English word carried in katakana, and in the books the full-text search lists its print life begins five years before the national dictionary's date, in a dictionary of words born from English, and runs through a decade of one essayist's jokes about early risers.
References
- 「ゴルファー」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/ゴルファー
- 英文大阪毎日学習号編輯局編, 『英語から生れた現代語の辭典』, 大阪出版社, 1925, scan 281. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1900269/1/281
- National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on ゴルファー, searched again 26 September 2026: 50 books counted, 29 listed, dated 1925 to 1965; nine of the 29 are 下村海南's, 1929 to 1939. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=ゴルファー
- 下村海南, 『鯖を讀む話』, 日本評論社, 1929, scan 144. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1881586/1/144