Meaning

noun (botany) a covering that resembles scales or bran that covers some plant parts

noun a thin flake of dead epidermis shed from the surface of the skin

originFrom scurf (“skin disease causing scabs or scales; flakes of skin that fall off due to a skin disease, etc.”), from Old English scurf, from Proto-Germanic *skurf- (“to gnaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off, sever; to divide, separate”). Cognate with Dutch schurft, German Schorf, Danish skurv, Swedish skorv.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0