Word.ws English Dictionary

fuzz

/fʌz/

fuzz noun: a frizzy mass of hair or fibre. Also the misspelling of fuss.

Noun (1)

fuzz (countable and uncountable, plural fuzzes)

  1. A frizzy mass of hair or fibre.
    • His cheeks were like peaches, with much the same sort of fuzz over them.1895, Hamlin Garland, Rose of Dutcher's Coolly, page 352
    • Once the eaglets are born—tiny balls of white fuzz—the adult eagles prove that birds can be as protective and solicitous of their young as humans.1962 July, Richard Petrow, “Last chance to save the Bald Eagle”, in Popular Science, volume 181, number 1, →ISSN, page 192
  2. Quality of an image that is unclear; a blurred image.
    • ...scientific advances happen more often at the frontier of representation, at the edge of resolution where an image dissolves into fuzz and blur.2010, Iain Boyd Whyte, Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN
  3. The random data used in fuzz testing.
    • "Fuzz testing" or "fuzzing" is a technique for software testing that provides random data ("fuzz") to the inputs of a program.2008, Asoke Talukder, Manish Chaitanya, Architecting Secure Software Systems, Boca Raton: CRC Press, →ISBN, page 94
  4. A distorted sound, especially from an electric guitar or other amplified instrument.
    • This gives a good soft clipping effect and a good fuzz sound.1994, R.A. Penfold, Music Projects, Boston: New Tech, →ISBN, page 33
  5. A state of befuddlement.
    • I think I'm in a fuzz, and don't know what I ſay, I never ſaw the like.1784, Jonathan Swift, “Journal to Stella”, in The works of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, page 54
    • So I'm in a fuzz of not knowing what to do2016 February 10, Ally, “Signs of an Online Dating Scam”, in Christie Hartman Ph.D., archived from the original on 26 Oct 2016, Comments
  6. Fuzziness, vagueness.

Verb

fuzz (third-person singular simple present fuzzes, present participle fuzzing, simple past and past participle fuzzed)

  1. (transitive) To make fuzzy.
  2. (intransitive) To become fuzzy.
  3. (dated, transitive) To make drunk.
    • Or maybe my mind was just fuzzed with the drink.2004, Quintin Jardine, Alarm Call, London: Headline, →ISBN
  4. To test a software component by running it on randomly generated input.
    • Sulley works by fuzzing the first fuzzable field to be fuzzed. While it is iterating through all the values it wants to try for that field, all the other fields are untouched and remain at their default value.2012, Charlie Miller, Dion Blazakis, Dino DaiZovi, iOS Hacker's Handbook, page 172
  5. (dated, intransitive) To fly off in minute particles with a fizzing sound, like water from hot metal.

Noun (2)

fuzz (uncountable)

  1. (US, slang, with-definite-article) The police, or any law enforcement agency.
    • Let's get the hell out of here before the fuzz turns up2009, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, 0:26:17

Also used as

fuzz is also the misspelling of fuss.

Examples of fuzz in a sentence

  • This sweater is already pilled: it fuzzed after the very first wash.
  • Q: I want to dermaplane my face to get rid of peach fuzz.
  • Next to her was a hammajang teddy bear, half the fuzz gone and missing one eye.

All 22 example sentences with fuzz

Forms of fuzz

Noun
pluralfuzzes
Verb
third-person singular presentfuzzes
present participlefuzzing
past participlefuzzed
pastfuzzed

Origin of fuzz

Uncertain. Some dictionaries suggest a Germanic source; compare Low German fussig (“loose; spongy”), Dutch voos (“unsound; rotten”). Others, such as Webster's New College Dictionary, suggest a back-formation from fuzzy. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests, “Perhaps imitative of the action of blowing away light particles.”

Unknown. Godfrey Irwin (1930) suggests a possible connection to fuss, "over-particular", excessive bother.

Words formed from fuzz

Phrases with fuzz

Words that rhyme with fuzz

3 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fuzz

What does fuzz mean?
Fuzz means a frizzy mass of hair or fibre.
What part of speech is fuzz?
Fuzz can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce fuzz?
Fuzz is pronounced /fʌz/.
What is the plural of fuzz?
The plural of fuzz is fuzzes.

Words near fuzz in the dictionary

  1. Fuzhounese
  2. fuzil
  3. fuzils
  4. fuzing
  5. fuzlocillin
  6. fuzz
  7. fuzz box
  8. fuzz boxes
  9. fuzz out
  10. fuzz test
  11. fuzz testing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fuzz (page history and authors). 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-us-fuzz.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fuzz.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fuzz. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.