Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use duff in a sentence

15 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Duff means dough. Example: “Why do I always get a shopping trolley with duff wheels?”

Examples of duff by meaning

nounA stiff flour pudding, often with dried fruit, boiled in a cloth bag, or steamed.

  • The storekeeper had sent them an unbroken case of canned plum pudding, and probably by this time he was wondering what had become of that blanky case of duff.1901, Henry Lawson, short story The Ghosts of Many Christmases, published in Children of the Bush http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7065
  • Dessert is as substantial as the main course, and none more so than the absolute favorite, guava duff.2000, Robert Barlas, Bahamas, page 118

nounA pudding-style dessert, especially one made with plums or (in the Bahamas) guavas.

  • With Christmas well on its way let's take a look at a modern version of an old favourite dessert more often than not reserved for the day we celebrate the birth of Christ: plum duff.2009, Graham Hawkes, Plum duff updated

nounDecaying vegetable matter on the forest floor.

  • These methods also make it possible for the forest officer to describe and to record his observations in precise terms such as “6% percent duff moisture” rather than in generalities such as “pretty dry duff.”1935, "New Equipment for Obtaining Host Material for the Mass Production of Trichogramma Minutum, an Egg Parasite of Various Insect Pests"...
  • Depth of litter and duff under the crown of each tree was measured at a point that appeared to represent average depth.1979, "Estimating pinyon and juniper fuel and biomass from aerial photographs" by Richard O. Meeuwig, Elwood LaVern Miller, Intermountain...
  • Out under the trees, some rangers had found enough duff and dry wood to start a fire beneath a slanting ridge of slate.1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 366

nounFine and dry coal in small pieces, usually anthracite.

  • The great bulk of the coal burnt under our boilers is duff of a very small size, and a mixed coal of duff, peas, and small nuts.1917, William Henry Fowler, The Mechanical Engineer

adjectiveWorthless; not working properly, defective.

  • Why do I always get a shopping trolley with duff wheels?
  • From its surface, he insisted, plain food became ambrosia, water nectar, and the duffest dope would blow your mind.1996, Catherine Merriman, State of Desire, page 155
  • The band developed its sound, shamblingly at first, on the road, in an era before thousands of blog or YouTube users could form an opinion of a band based on some MySpace demos and a duff early gig in Tacoma.2008 May 18, R J Smith, “Death Cab Is Up for the Long Haul”, in New York Times

More sentences with duff

  • I heard Nick got duffed up behind the shopping centre at the weekend.From the entry duff up
  • “Someone grabbed me from behind and said ‘No duff,’ which means this is real,” said LCdr.2011 August 24, Gloria Galloway, “When troops heard ‘no duff,’ they knew Resolute Bay rescue wasn’t an exercise”, in The Globe and Mail. From the entry no duff
  • At 19, he was married (‘only because she was up the duff’ he explains gallantly).1994, The Daily Telegraph, quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, page 88, 2nd edition, 2005. From the entry up the duff
  • It’s a gloriously entertaining romp with a host of iconic villains to duff up and six playable characters to master.2026 May, Darren Jones, “Marvel MaXimum Collection: Have Limited Run Games Put in Maximum Effort?”, in Retro Gamer, number 285, via…. From the entry rollback netcode
  • It just means that some daft wee hairy that gets knocked up the duff has tae get oan the bus tae Carlisle tae get cleaned oot.1998, Irvine Welsh, Filth, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 191. From the entry up the duff

Meaning of duff

  1. noun Dough.
  2. noun A stiff flour pudding, often with dried fruit, boiled in a cloth bag, or steamed.
  3. noun A pudding-style dessert, especially one made with plums or (in the Bahamas) guavas.

Full definition of duff

Questions about duff in a sentence

How do you use duff in a sentence?
Duff is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “Why do I always get a shopping trolley with duff wheels?”
What is a short sentence with duff?
“Why do I always get a shopping trolley with duff wheels?”
What does duff mean?
Duff means dough.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: duff (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use duff in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/duff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.