Link Centre Dictionary

fluff

UK/flʊf/ US/flʌf/ uncommon informal obsolete slang uk
noun (3) verb (3)

noun

1.
2.
3.

a blunder (especially an actor''s forgetting the lines)

verb

1.

make a mess of, destroy or ruin

  • “I botched the dinner and we had to eat out”
  • “the pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement”
Synonyms
2.

erect or fluff up

  • “the bird ruffled its feathers”
Synonyms
3.

ruffle (one''s hair) by combing towards the ends towards the scalp, for a full effect

Synonyms

Origin

From earlier floow (“woolly substance, down, nap, lint”), also spelt flough, flue, and flew, from West Flemish vluwe, of uncertain ultimate origin: * Compare Old English flōh (“that which is flown off, fragment, piece”); see flaw * Possibly representing a blend of flue + puff; compare Middle Dutch vloe, or perhaps onomatopoeic; compare dialectal English floose, flooze, fleeze (“particles of wool or cotton; fluff; loose threads or fibres”), Danish fnug (“down, fluff”), Swedish fnugg (“speck, flake”). * Alternatively, West Flemish vluwe may derive from French velu (“hairy, furry”), from Latin villūtus (“having shaggy hair”), from villus (“shaggy hair, tuft of hair”). For words of similar sound and meaning in other languages, compare Japanese フワフワ (fuwafuwa, “lightly, softly”), Hungarian puha (“soft, fluffy”), Polish puchaty (“soft, fluffy”), Romanian puf (“down, peachfuzz, soft hair of some animals, powderpuff”).

Phrases

  • ball of fluff
  • bit of fluff
  • fluff about
  • fluff bunny
  • fluff girl
  • fluff in the pan
  • fluff off
  • fluff one's feathers
  • fluff one's lines
  • fluff out
  • fluff up
  • Local Fluff

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

See also

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.