duff
UK/dʌf/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/dɐf/
duff noun: dough. Also the alternative form of daf.
Noun (1)
duff (countable and uncountable, plural duffs)
- Dough.
- A stiff flour pudding, often with dried fruit, boiled in a cloth bag, or steamed.
- Later on, all the tinned meat came to an end, likewise the potatoes, and we lived on salt meat, biscuit, and duff; this fare was served out to all the messes on board, and we, I was going to say, saloon-folk, fared no better than the fo'castle hands.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 196
- The storekeeper had sent them an unbroken case of canned plum pudding, and probably by this time he was wondering what had become of that blanky case of duff.1901, Henry Lawson, short story The Ghosts of Many Christmases, published in Children of the Bush http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7065
- A pudding-style dessert, especially one made with plums or (in the Bahamas) guavas.
- They must live on sea food—a deal more of salt beef, pork, beans, and hard tack is than of any thing else, but of the food at sea well as in port it may here be said that it is ample in quantity and good enough anybody, though by no means all strawberry shortcake and cream or plum duff.1891, John R. Spears, “The Life of a Naval Apprentice”, in The Chautauquan, volume 13
- With Christmas well on its way let's take a look at a modern version of an old favourite dessert more often than not reserved for the day we celebrate the birth of Christ: plum duff. It is just as well Christmas falls during the summer school holidays as a nipper this allowed me to be at my...2009, Graham Hawkes, Plum duff updated
Noun (2)
duff (countable and uncountable, plural duffs)
- Decaying vegetable matter on the forest floor.
- Forest fires have often been started from wantonness; for the sake of making a big blaze, fires will be carelessly left by guides, or will be smouldering in the duff,* where it will burn for weeks. I have seen the smoke from fires in the duff even after the snow has fallen.
- * Local term for the vegetable growth covering the forest ground of the Adirondacks. under the spruce trees, the falling needles accumulate to considerable depth, forming the "spruce duff," a peculiar and interesting variety of forest humus.1886, Annual Report of the Forest Commission of the State of New York
- Coal dust, especially that left after screening or combined with other small, unsaleable bits of coal.
- Fine and dry coal in small pieces, usually anthracite.
- The great bulk of the coal burnt under our boilers is duff of a very small size, and a mixed coal of duff, peas, and small nuts.1917, William Henry Fowler, The Mechanical Engineer
- A mixture of coal and rock.
- The bits left in the bottom of the bag after the booty has been consumed, like crumbs.
- Something spurious or fake; a counterfeit; a worthless thing; a defective thing.
- Synonyms:
- duffer
- An error.
Adjective
Noun (3)
duff (plural duffs)
- The buttocks.
Verb
duff (third-person singular simple present duffs, present participle duffing, simple past and past participle duffed)
- To disguise something to make it look new.
- To sell spurious goods, often under pretence of their being stolen or smuggled.
- A person once taken-in by smuggled handkerchiefs, or anything, won’t deal with a hawker again, even though there’s no deception. But ‘duffing,’ and all that is going down fast, and I wish it was gone altogether.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861
- To alter the branding of stolen cattle; to steal cattle.
- To hit the ground behind the ball.
Proper noun capitalized: Duff
Duff (countable and uncountable, plural Duffs)
- A surname.
- A village in Saskatchewan, Canada.
- An unincorporated community in Indiana, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Nebraska, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Tennessee, United States.
- A male given name.
- A BR class 47, a class of British diesel locomotive.
Noun (4) capitalized: DUFF
DUFF (plural DUFFs)
- Acronym of dumb/designated ugly fat friend, an attractive woman's less attractive friend.
Also used as
duff is also the alternative form of daf.
duff meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
duff in Hindi
- डफ, डफ़
duff in Tamil
- டஃப்
duff in Marathi
- डफ, डफ्फ
duff in Urdu
- ڈف
More languagesFewer languages
- duff in Bengali
- ডফ, ডাফ
- duff in Telugu
- డఫ్, డఫ్ఫ్
- duff in Malayalam
- ഡഫ്, ഡഫ്ഫ്
- duff in Kannada
- ಡಫ್, ಡಫ್ಫ್, ಡುಫ್
- duff in Punjabi
- ਡੱਫ, ਡਫ, ਡੱਫ਼
- duff in Gujarati
- ડફ, ડફ્ફ, ડુફ
- duff in Odia
- ଡଫ୍, ଡଫ
- duff in Nepali
- डफ, डुफ, डफ गर्न
Examples of duff in a sentence
- Dessert is as substantial as the main course, and none more so than the absolute favorite, guava duff.2000, Robert Barlas, Bahamas, page 118:
- With Christmas well on its way let's take a look at a modern version of an old favourite dessert more often than not reserved for the day we celebrate the birth of Christ: plum duff.2009, Graham Hawkes, Plum duff updated:
- Depth of litter and duff under the crown of each tree was measured at a point that appeared to represent average depth.1979, "Estimating pinyon and juniper fuel and biomass from aerial photographs" by Richard O. Meeuwig, Elwood LaVern Miller, Intermountain...
- Out under the trees, some rangers had found enough duff and dry wood to start a fire beneath a slanting ridge of slate.1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 366:
Synonyms of duff
Forms of duff
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | duffs |
| plural | DUFFs |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | duffer |
| superlative | duffest |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | duffs |
| present participle | duffing |
| past participle | duffed |
| past | duffed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Duffs |
Origin of duff
Representing a northern England and Scots pronunciation of dough.
Uncertain; probably related to Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”).
Uncertain; perhaps the same as Etymology 1, above.
Words formed from duff
- duffo
- figgy duff
- plum-duff
- duff up
- Duff Hill
- Duff Islands
- Duff Peak
- Duff Point
- Duff River
- Duff's device
- Dufftown
Words that rhyme with duff
Questions about duff
- What does duff mean?
- Duff means dough.
- What is duff in Hindi?
- Duff in Hindi is डफ, डफ़. See Duff meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use duff in a sentence?
- Dessert is as substantial as the main course, and none more so than the absolute favorite, guava duff.
- What part of speech is duff?
- Duff can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce duff?
- Duff is pronounced /dʌf/ (UK).
- What is the plural of duff?
- The plural of duff is duffs.
Words near duff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: duff (page history and authors); Duff (page history and authors); DUFF (page history and authors); duff (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duff (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-duff.ogg.
Cite this entry: “duff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/duff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.