Word.ws English Dictionary

huffing and puffing

huffing and puffing is the present participle and gerund of huff and puff.

Meaning of huff and puff

Verb

huff and puff (third-person singular simple present huffs and puffs, present participle huffing and puffing, simple past and past participle huffed and puffed)

  1. To breathe heavily, especially after rigorous exercise.
    • They were short of ideas, huffing and puffing their way towards a demoralising defeat.August 16 2014, Daniel Taylor, "Swansea upstage Manchester United in Louis van Gaal’s Premier League bow," guardian.co.uk

Questions about huffing and puffing

What is huffing and puffing the present participle and gerund of?
Huffing and puffing is the present participle and gerund of huff and puff.

Words near huffing and puffing in the dictionary

  1. huffin'
  2. Huffine
  3. Huffines
  4. huffiness
  5. huffing
  6. huffing and puffing
  7. huffing off
  8. huffingly
  9. huffings
  10. huffish
  11. huffishly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: huffing and puffing (page history and authors); huff and puff (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: “huffing and puffing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/huffing_and_puffing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.