Word.ws English Dictionary

puffing

puffing verb: leaving a car engine running unattended, especially in cold weather to warm it up. Also the present participle and gerund of puff.

Verb

puffing

  1. (US) Leaving a car engine running unattended, especially in cold weather to warm it up.
    • It's called "puffing," when drivers start their car and then leave it unattended while running.2011 December 6, TRI-102.5 Staff, “‘Puffing’ is Illegal in Colorado (Warming Up Your Car Unattended)”, in TRI-102.5

Noun

puffing (plural puffings)

  1. The act of one who puffs.
    • the puffings and pantings of a man running to catch a train
  2. A puffy ornament.
    • Evening dresses are trimmed in a variety of ways, with puffings of crape, fringes, and ornaments, of the richest patterns[…]1825, The Ladies' Monthly Museum, volume 21, page 50
  3. An opinion or judgment, often made by the seller of property to a potential buyer, that is not made as a representation of fact.

Also used as

puffing is also the present participle and gerund of puff.

Forms of puffing

pluralpuffings

Phrases with puffing

Questions about puffing

What does puffing mean?
Puffing means leaving a car engine running unattended, especially in cold weather to warm it up.
What part of speech is puffing?
Puffing can be a verb or a noun.

Words near puffing in the dictionary

  1. puffin crossings
  2. puffiness
  3. puffinesses
  4. puffinet
  5. puffinets
  6. puffing
  7. puffing Billy
  8. puffing one's chest
  9. puffing out
  10. puffing pig
  11. puffing pigs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: puffing (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:

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