huff
UK/hʌf/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/hɐf/
huff noun: a heavy breath; a grunt or sigh.
Noun
huff (plural huffs)
- A heavy breath; a grunt or sigh.
- With a huff, he lifted the box onto the back of the truck.
- A condition of anger, annoyance, disgust, etc.
- in a huff
- Such wickedness had never come into his head; but he had a certain pleasure in being the confidential friend of a very pretty woman; and when he heard that that pretty woman's husband was jealous, the pleasure was enhanced rather than otherwise. On that Sunday, as he had left the house in Curzon...1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Hard Words”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 74
- One swelled with a false sense of importance or value; a boaster.
- Lewd, shallow-brained huffs make atheism and contempt of religion the sole badge [...] of wit.1667, Robert South, The Practice of Religion enforced by Reason
- The act of removing an opponent's piece as a forfeit for deliberately not taking a piece (often signalled by blowing on it).
Verb
huff (third-person singular simple present huffs, present participle huffing, simple past and past participle huffed)
- To breathe heavily.
- The run left him huffing and puffing.
- To say in a huffy manner.
- To enlarge; to swell up.
- Bread huffs.
- To bluster or swell with anger, arrogance, or pride; to storm; to take offense.
- This senseless arrogant conceit of theirs made them huff at the doctrine of repentance.1691, Robert South, On the nature and measure of conscience
- After all, she huffed, Emily (played by Lily Collins) has been living in the French capital for about a year and had a Champagne brand as her client at the fictional luxury marketing firm, Savoir, where she worked.2023 January 20, Dan Bilefsky, “American Expatriates in Paris Wish Emily Cooper Would Go Home”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- To treat with arrogance and insolence; to chide or rebuke rudely; to bully, to hector.
- […] I was ſent for by the marſhall, huffed and hectored ſtrangely, thretned, &c., in fine, muſte give bonds to the good behaviour; I refuſed, […]1684 February 4, William Vaughan, “[Appendix.] XXXI. A Letter from William Vaughan, Esq. Containing a Journal of Transactions during His Imprisonment, &c. to Nathaniel Weare, Esq. Agent in London.”...
- You must not think to huff us.1720, Laurence Echard, The history of England: from the first entrance of Julius Caesar and the Romans to the end of the reign of King James the first containing the space of 1678 years
- To vex; to offend.
- Signior Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to be very friendly to all his neighbours he was, like most country gentlemen, rather easily huffed.1851, Varieties in English Life, page 42
- To inhale psychoactive inhalants.
- To remove an opponent's piece as a forfeit for deliberately not taking a piece (often signalled by blowing on it).
Proper noun capitalized: Huff
Huff (countable and uncountable, plural Huffs)
- A surname.
- A township in Spencer County, Indiana, named after Aquilia Huff.
- An unincorporated community in Edmonson County, Kentucky, named for the Huff family.
- An unincorporated community in Franklin County, Missouri, probably named after settler Andrew Huff.
- An unincorporated community in Morton County, North Dakota, near the Huff Archeological Site.
- A ghost town in Archer County, Texas, named after Charles C. Huff.
huff meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
huff in Hindi
- to breathe heavily
- हाँफना hā̃phnā
huff in Tamil
- சினநிலை, வெடு வெடுப்பு
huff in Urdu
- بددماغی, غصہ, ہوا کا جھونکا, خفگی, تاؤ, بگڑنا
More languagesFewer languages
- huff in Bengali
- ক্রোধ, বিরক্তি, ফুঁসানি
- huff in Telugu
- హఫ్, హుఫ్
- huff in Malayalam
- മൂര്ഖത്വം, മുഷിച്ചിൽ, നീരസം, ചീത്തപ്രകൃതം
- huff in Kannada
- ಸಿಟ್ಟು, ಕೋಪ, ರೇಗಾಟ, ಮುನಿಸು
- huff in Punjabi
- ਹੱਫ, ਹੱਫ਼
- huff in Gujarati
- હફ
- huff in Odia
- ହଫ୍, ହୁଫ୍
- huff in Nepali
- हफ, हफ्फ
Examples of huff in a sentence
- I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down.
- Cryptobros have been huffing copious amounts of copium after yesterday's devastating Bitcoin crash.
- Down the high iron sped a huffing 4-4-2.
Forms of huff
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | huffs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | huffs |
| present participle | huffing |
| past participle | huffed |
| past | huffed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Huffs |
| alternative form | Houff |
Origin of huff
Probably an altered spelling of earlier *hough, represented by Scots hech (“to breathe hard, pant”). Compare also German hauchen (“to breathe”).
Words formed from huff
Phrases with huff
Words that rhyme with huff
Questions about huff
- What does huff mean?
- Huff means a heavy breath; a grunt or sigh.
- What is huff in Hindi?
- Huff in Hindi is हाँफना (hā̃phnā). See Huff meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is huff?
- Huff can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce huff?
- Huff is pronounced /hʌf/ (UK).
- What is the plural of huff?
- The plural of huff is huffs.
Words near huff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: huff (page history and authors); Huff (page history and authors); huff (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); huff (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); huff (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Huff (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); huff (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); huff (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); huff (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); huff (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); huff (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); huff (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); huff (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-huff.ogg.
Cite this entry: “huff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/huff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.