ruffest

Noun

ruff (plural ruffs)

1. A circular frill or ruffle on a garment, especially a starched, fluted frill at the neck in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (1560s–1620s).
   • You a Captaine? you ſlaue, for what? for tearing a poore Whores Ruffe in a Bawdy-houſe? Hee a Captaine? hang him Rogue, hee liues vpon mouldie ſtew'd-Pruines, and dry'de Cakes.c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, containing His Death: And the Coronation of King Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
2. Anything formed with plaits or flutings like a frill.
   • Fair from its humble bed I rear'd this flow'r; / Suckled, and chear'd, with air, and ſun, and ſhow'r; / Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I ſpread, / Bright with the gilded button tipt its head; […]1742, [Alexander] Pope, The New Dunciad: [...] With the Illustrations of Scriblerus, and Notes Variorum, 2nd edition, London: Printed for J. H. Hubbard, in the Old-Bailey, →OCLC, pages 24–25, lines...
3. A gregarious, medium-sized wading bird of species Calidris pugnax (syn. Philomachus pugnax), of Eurasia; specifically, a male of the species which develops a distinctive ruff of feathers and ear tufts during mating season (the female is called a reeve).
   • A reeve shows her readiness to copulate by crouching in a particular residence. In a crowded lek she selects an individual ruff by turning towards him while still crouching. Some ruffs are thus chosen frequently while others are never selected. Ruff and reeve only copulate after she has crouched...1986, Desmond Nethersole-Thompson, Maimie Nethersole-Thompson, “New or Returning Waders”, in Waders: Their Breeding, Haunts and Watchers, Calton, Staffordshire: T. & A. D. Poyser, →ISBN; republished...
4. A set of lengthened or otherwise modified feathers on or around the neck of a bird.
   • I ſhall call this bird the painted vulture. […] the head and neck bare of feathers nearly down to the ſtomach, when the feathers begin to cover the ſkin, and ſoon become long and of a ſoft texture, forming a ruff or tippet, in which the bird by contracting his neck can hide that as well as his...1794, William Bartram, chapter V, in Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy...
5. A collar of lengthened or distinctively coloured fur on or around the neck of an animal.
   • The Afghan urial, which is smaller than the Transcaspian urial, is found in the mountains near Iran's eastern frontier, and is the wild sheep of Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Its ruff is black sprinkled with white hairs and its bib is white.2005, Eskandar Firouz, “Mammals of Iran”, in The Complete Fauna of Iran, London; New York, N.Y.: I.B. Tauris, →ISBN, page 88
6. A collar on a shaft or other piece to prevent endwise motion.
   • The stroke of the cut-off valves is very short, and the ruffs on the parts, g, g, regulate its length.1835 January, James Whitelaw, “A Method of Working the Slides and Valves of Steam Engines when Using Steam Expansively”, in The Repertory of Patent Inventions, and Other Discoveries & Improvements in...

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