ruffing

Verb

ruff (third-person singular simple present ruffs, present participle ruffing, simple past and past participle ruffed)

1. (transitive) To shape (fabric, etc.) into a ruff; to adorn (a garment, etc.) with a ruff.
   • The Ladies too were carp’d at, and their Dreſs, / He wants ’em all ruff’d up like good Queen Beſs!1754 December 3, [David] Garrick, “Epilogue, […]”, in [John Brown], Barbarossa. A Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson and S[omerset] Draper […], published 1755, →OCLC, page [5]
2. (transitive) Of a falcon, hawk, etc.: to hit (the prey) without fixing or grabbing hold of it.
   • Instantly the keen-eyed hawk "stooped," or descended, with a rushing swoop, and struck one of the birds with her claws, but without killing it, which is called "rifling," or "ruffing" it.1888, Good Words, volume 29, London: Alexander Strahan and Co., →OCLC, page 616
3. (rare, transitive) To ruffle; to disorder.
   • Thenceforth the fether in her lofty creſt, / Ruffed of loue, gan lowly to auaile, / And her prowd portaunce, and her princely geſt, / VVith which ſhe earſt tryumphed, now did quaile: […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 27, page 418
4. (obsolete, transitive) Of a bird: to ruffle its feathers.
   • "Scat," the crow said. I ignored him. He ruffed up his feathers, doubling his size.2015, Tor Seidler, chapter 1, in Firstborn (A Caitlyn Dloughy Book), New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 7
5. (obsolete, transitive) To boast, to brag.
6. (intransitive, obsolete) To speak in a loud and domineering manner; to bluster, to swagger.
   • […] Mr Gillies ruffed and screamed out so loud in approbation, that he fell from his chair, and brought an American gentleman down with him.1831, “the Ettrick Shepherd” [pseudonym; James Hogg], “The Noctes Sang”, in Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd. Now First Collected, Edinburgh: William Blackwood; London: T[homas] Cadell, →OCLC

See all 25 meanings of ruff