Word.ws English Dictionary

stand the gaff

stand the gaff verb: to endure harsh criticism, rough treatment, or severe difficulties without complaining or breaking down.

Verb

stand the gaff (third-person singular simple present stands the gaff, present participle standing the gaff, simple past and past participle stood the gaff)

  1. To endure harsh criticism, rough treatment, or severe difficulties without complaining or breaking down.

Forms of stand the gaff

third-person singular presentstands the gaff
present participlestanding the gaff
past participlestood the gaff
paststood the gaff

Origin of stand the gaff

Became famous in the 1925 coalminers' strike in New Waterford, Nova Scotia, Canada, when J E McClurg, vice-president of BESCO, intent on starving the strikers into submission, was heard laughing at the strikers, saying "They can't stand the gaff." It then became an expression of defiance for the miners.

Questions about stand the gaff

What does stand the gaff mean?
Stand the gaff means to endure harsh criticism, rough treatment, or severe difficulties without complaining or breaking down.
What part of speech is stand the gaff?
Stand the gaff is a verb.
What is the past tense of stand the gaff?
The past tense of stand the gaff is stood the gaff.

Words near stand the gaff in the dictionary

  1. stand shilly-shally
  2. stand someone in hand
  3. stand still
  4. stand stills
  5. stand tall
  6. stand the gaff
  7. stand the test of time
  8. stand there like a lemon
  9. stand to
  10. stand to attention
  11. stand to pee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stand the gaff (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: “stand the gaff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stand_the_gaff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.