naff
/næf/
naff adjective: bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable; tacky.
Adjective
naff (comparative naffer, superlative naffest)
- Bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable; tacky.
- That tie is a bit naff, don’t you think?
- She was an ordinary woman in her dress style; she didn't wear a leather bodice or naff over-knee plastic spiky-heeled boots.1998, Robert Llewellyn, The Man on Platform Five, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 291
- Heterosexual.
- The omie was a veritable donkey beneath the waistband, darlings. A donkey! No wonder your boss-palone is so smitten. I've seen my share, dollies, but this old omiepalone was shaken to the core. Such a terrible waste on a naff bloke.2004, Pip Granger, Trouble In Paradise
Proper noun capitalized: Naff
Naff
- An English surname.
naff meaning in Tamil
naff in Tamil
- நயமற்ற, தாழ்ந்த
Examples of naff in a sentence
- It was demonized by Daily Mail Readers getting drunk in naff wine bars.2004, J. J. Connolly, Layer Cake, spoken by XXXX (Daniel Craig):
- Remember, “tacky” means “cheap or glitzy”, whereas “naff” is about stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically ordinary.2012, Simon Doonan, Gay men don't get fat, New York: Blue Rider Press, →ISBN, page 206:
- A mere seven years after her tragic death, isn’t it grim and tasteless to send her hologram off on some naff tour?2019 February 24, Barbara Ellen, “Amy Winehouse could belt out a tune – her naff hologram can’t”, in The Guardian:
- Note that last phrase: what actually emerged was a virtual-reality platform called Horizon Worlds, accessible only via naff and clunky Oculus headsets (think an uncomfortable version of Zoom) […]2023 May 13, John Naughton, “A moment’s silence, please, for the death of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse”, in The Observer, →ISSN:
Forms of naff
| comparative | naffer |
|---|---|
| superlative | naffest |
Origin of naff
Perhaps from Polari, 1960s. Further etymology unknown; perhaps a conscious corruption of either fanny or eff (off) (see naff off).
South German and Alemannic German surname (Näff), variant of Neff.
Words formed from naff
Words that rhyme with naff
14 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about naff
- What does naff mean?
- Naff means bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable; tacky.
- What is naff in Tamil?
- Naff in Tamil is நயமற்ற, தாழ்ந்த. See Naff meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use naff in a sentence?
- It was demonized by Daily Mail Readers getting drunk in naff wine bars.
- What part of speech is naff?
- Naff can be an adjective or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce naff?
- Naff is pronounced /næf/.
Words near naff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: naff (page history and authors); Naff (page history and authors); naff (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-au-naff.ogg.
Cite this entry: “naff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/naff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.