Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use scuff in a sentence

21 example sentences · verb, noun

Scuff means to scrape the feet while walking. Example: “Someone left scuff marks in the sand.”

Examples of scuff by meaning

verbTo hit lightly, to brush against.

  • The lawns and gardens had been scuffed away.1979, V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
  • He looked a certain scorer but his effort scuffed the inside of Fraser Forster’s post.2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record

verbTo mishit (a shot on a ball) due to poor contact with the ball.

  • The Montenegro captain was finding space at will and followed up with a speculative shot that he scuffed wide, after Wales were slow in closing down the Juventus striker.2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC

nounA mark left by scuffing or scraping.

  • Someone left scuff marks in the sand.
  • He flung his shoes across the room, their soles leaving black scuffs on the dingy wall.2015, Charles W. Jones, Hydrangeas on the Lanai

nounThe sound of a scuff or scrape.

  • All you could hear was the rhythmic scuff of Mr.2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN

nounA (sudden) shower of rain or mist.

  • When, having lunched, we breasted the climbing path in the early afternoon, the mists came down on Dollar Law, and across the valley drifted "scuffs" of soft rain that soaked us ere we topped the summit of the Bitch Craig.1910, Nicholas Dickson, William Sanderson, The Border Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, page 52

More sentences with scuff

  • I scuffed my shoe on the door.From the entry scuffed
  • I bought a scuffed skateboard from a second-hand store.From the entry scuffed
  • Sure the others had a couple scuff marks, but he got the worst of it with all the bruises.From the entry get the worst of it
  • He was wearing a grubby white shirt, jeans and scuffed black slip-on shoes.2014 January 16, Veronica Henry, Love on the Rocks, London: Orion, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN. From the entry on the breadline
  • Then I scuffed my feet, rubbed my hands together, and went for the slam.2011, Joe “Animal” Laurinaitis, Andrew William Wright, “Destroy Everything that Moves”, in The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush…. From the entry kayfabed
  • The benches are scuffed Victorian, and lying on them are sets of kneelers embroidered by parishioners.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 207. From the entry kneeler
  • The lawman chuckled and stirred his dope stick around in the bucket on the ground near his scuffed, grease-smeared boots.2009, Peter Brandvold, .45-Caliber Widow Maker. From the entry dope stick
  • The brown leather was battered and scuffed.1977, Stephen King, Children of the Corn. From the entry granny
  • Her shoes lethargically scuffed the floor as she sauntered away.1954, Ian Fleming, “The Everglades”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 119. From the entry 'kay
  • She wore khaki shorts, scuffed hiking boots, and a lavender T-shirt with an open book on the front that read My patronus is a bookworm.2021, Jennie Marts, When a Cowboy Loves a Woman, Sourcebooks Casablanca, →ISBN. From the entry patronus
  • Bo pulled the Pajero off the road and parked on a patch of scuffed kikuyu grass in front of a small weatherboard house.2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 64. From the entry kikuyu grass
  • He was tall and lean, with lank fair hair and a square jaw, togged out in tweeds and a checked shirt and scuffed, oxblood brogues.1993, John Banville, Ghosts. From the entry oxblood
  • Dad’s feet were still dangling over the grinders below, scuffing the tips of his shoes with a noise like a piece of paper being lowered into a desk fan.2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN. From the entry desk fan
  • He was known for throwing the “emery ball,” a baseball that had been scuffed with a piece of emery board hidden in the heel of his glove.2009, Chris Epting, The Early Polo Grounds, page 1948. From the entry emery board

Meaning of scuff

  1. verb To scrape the feet while walking.
  2. verb To scrape and roughen the surface of (shoes, etc.).
  3. verb To hit lightly, to brush against.

Full definition of scuff

Questions about scuff in a sentence

How do you use scuff in a sentence?
Scuff is used as a verb and noun. For example: “Someone left scuff marks in the sand.”
What is a short sentence with scuff?
“I scuffed my shoe on the door.”
What does scuff mean?
Scuff means to scrape the feet while walking.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scuff (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 scuff in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/scuff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.