surface

The overside or upside of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.

A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,[…].

Use the lowest light level required. Be mindful of surface conditions, as some surfaces may reflect more light into the night sky than was intended.

The outside hull of a tangible object.

Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.

[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.

Outward or external appearance.

On the surface, the spy looked like a typical businessman.

Such characters as have nothing but external accompliſhments to recommend them, may indeed be greatly admired and approved by vain and weak underſtandings, which penetrate no deeper than the ſurface; but they are deſpiſed by all the truly ſenſible, and pitied by all the truly good.

The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a space of more than two dimensions.

The story or image suggested by a cryptic clue, when read as a whole sentence without considering wordplay.

The surface is clearly about people like you and me, those whose better days are behind us and who now shop at M&S.

If you are fooled by the surface you start thinking about internet browsers. But in this case it deviously refers to an animal that feeds by browsing, which is a longer standing use of the word.

To provide with a surface; to apply a surface to.

The crew surfaced the road with bitumen.

To rise to the surface.

There was great relief when the missing diver finally surfaced.

To bring to the surface.

Sage went immediately to work; Damien surfaced the submarine and readied the group to meet outside the hatch.

To come out of hiding.

To become known or apparent; to appear or be found; to come to light.

Subordinate clauses, by contrast, exhibit V1 or V2 only around 35% of the time, with the verb usually surfacing later.

They're not growing. Why would I surface them to new people? [...That] makes our video surface less, and that makes the next video surface less.

A surname.