Talk:strafe

Meanings
Let's find a consensus for all the popular meanings of "strafe" in English. - I think it has something to do with shooting a gun. -

As a verb, strafe means, "to attack (ground troops, for example) with a machine gun or cannon from a low-flying aircraft." As a noun, it means, "an attack of machine-gun or cannon fire from a low-flying aircraft."

It originates from the German phrase Gott strafe England ("God punish England") a common salutation in Germany in 1914 and the following years.

It was used (originally by British soldiers) in various senses suggested by its origin: To punish; to do damage to; to attack fiercely; to heap imprecations on. In later military usage, it came to mean to attack from low-flying aircraft with bombs or machine-gun fire, etc.

(References: The Oxford English Dictionary, various other garden-variety desktop dictionaries, dictionary.com)

Interestingly, the first-person-shooter video game Quake has perpetuated an odd misuse of the word strafe.

Strafe does not mean to step sideways or run sideways; it has no relation to movement, lateral or otherwise. How it came to mean what it does in Quake et al is a mystery.

--C3k 13:40, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * If you happen to be shooting with a machine gun or similar while moving sideways as in Quake, Doom etc. (which is what the game is all about!) then it is very similar to what I would understand by the word, ie: shooting continuously from an aircraft at targets on the ground. The aircraft is usually moving which is where the movement concept comes from. trunkie 19:32, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I had thought about that possibility; however I have encountered several uses of the verb where a meaning solely of lateral movement was clearly all that was implied. Is it possible a key-function in the game that was originally intended to spray gunfire was superceded or replaced with a lateral-movement key-function but the name (strafe) for the former function was never updated?


 * Anyway, guess we ought to move this stuff to a Discussion section if there is more to be discussed. It is certainly interesting to help build a dictionary entry and to observe and discuss the evolution of meaning(s) for various words....  --C3k 20:38, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have seen Strafe used to represent lateral movement in not only video games but also military and band marching instruction manuals. I really believe this usage needs investigation. It may be a recent development possibly due to the misuse by games as early as Wolfenstein 3D, but it has crept into other areas. I, even after learning it in relation to marching, had no idea that the word had anything to do with shooting a gun. I have consulted with other people who have agreed that this is the definition they understood it to have. The definition given here although correct is also perhaps archiac to the younger generation. Comments?


 * Right, it seems to be shifting increasingly towards the meaning 'lateral motion', and I do think FPS games have perpetuated the concept. Why not? It's nice example of semantic drift. Pronunciation is different from the German too.. "strayfe" and not "strah-fe", although that's likely to have been that way from the start. I'd say that the new meaning is definitely worthy of mention. Certainly there are far less people using the old meaning than there are FPS players.

RFV — passed
Rfv-sense" to sidestep; to move sideways without turning. A core mechanic of most first-person shooters. A video-game sense.
 * This doesn't seem plausible, given the earlier meaning, but attestation could prove it an actual current meaning. DCDuring TALK 13:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * As an occasional Doom player, I've certainly heard of this. There are some decent references in among this lot: Equinox 16:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not finding that I personally can abide the "sidestep" sense, whether attestable or not. DCDuring TALK 18:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe it comes from the movement of a strafing aeroplane, i.e. left to right without turning away from the enemy. Added a couple of book citations. Equinox 14:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Cited and kept. Equinox ◑ 19:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

strafe
Definitions given are way out in left field. From a stationary gun, you strafe an advancing line of attackers. Video games have had absolutely nothing to do with "shifting" meaning of WWI era terms that have remained in common use, for about a century. --Connel MacKenzie 12:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems, that DAVilla and others have cleaned this entry. - -sche 18:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)