Word.ws English Dictionary

gaffing

gaffing is the present participle and gerund of gaff.

gaffing is the present participle and gerund of gaf.

Meaning of gaff

Verb

gaff (third-person singular simple present gaffs, present participle gaffing, simple past and past participle gaffed)

  1. To use a gaff, especially to land a fish.
    • I stepped out and advanced valiantly upon a long-maned bull in the midst of his wives. I was armed with the regular club with which the boat-pullers killed the wounded seals gaffed aboard by the hunters.1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC
  2. To cheat or hoax.
  3. (transitive) To doctor or modify for deceptive purposes.
    • When the operator began losing, he gaffed the wheel and then the patron had no chance to win. With his secret device an experienced grifter could stop the wheel at will on any number.1993, Betty Lou Wolfe, Marian Jean Gray, The Way We Were: Reflections from the 1930's, page 23
  4. (obsolete, slang) To gamble, especially by tossing coins.
  5. (informal, transitive) To affix gaffer tape to, or cover with gaffer tape.
    • I gaffed down the sleeves to my lens hoods instead of just relying on the drawstring to hold it in place.2013 July 19, Kai-Huei Yau, “Shoot before you dye”, in Tri-City Herald, archived from the original on 20 Feb 2020

See all 15 meanings of gaff

Noun

gaffing (plural gaffings)

  1. The process of landing a fish with a gaff.
    • Of the few gaffings that I have seen attempted under water most have been either bad shots or failures. One sees the gut fouled, the fish torn, the fish lost, and the angler fume.1930, W. F. R. Reynolds, Fly and Minnow: Common Problems of Trout and Salmon Fishing
    • He recognizes the fish by the effects of previous gaffings.1966, Outdoor Indiana, volume 32, page 15

Forms of gaffing

pluralgaffings

Phrases with gaffing

Questions about gaffing

What does gaffing mean?
Gaffing means the process of landing a fish with a gaff.
What is gaffing the present participle and gerund of?
Gaffing is the present participle and gerund of gaff.
What part of speech is gaffing?
Gaffing is a noun.
What is the plural of gaffing?
The plural of gaffing is gaffings.

Words near gaffing in the dictionary

  1. gaffers tape
  2. gaffers tapes
  3. gaffes
  4. Gaffey
  5. Gaffeys
  6. gaffing
  7. gaffing off
  8. gaffings
  9. gaffkaemia
  10. gaffkemia
  11. gaffle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gaffing (page history and authors); gaff (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.

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