chuff

• IPA^(key): /tʃʌf/
• Rhymes: -ʌf
• Homophone: chough

15th century, dialectal, in noun sense “stupid fellow”.[1][2] Adjective sense “surly, displeased” from 1832.[2]

chuff (comparative more chuff, superlative most chuff)

1. (Britain) Surly; annoyed; displeased; disgruntled.
2. (Britain, dialectal) stupid; churlish

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wright to this entry?)

• (surly): chuffy
• (swollen): chuffy

chuff (plural chuffs)

1. A coarse or stupid fellow.
   • a. 1597, Shakespeare, William, Henry IV, Part 1, Act 2, Scene 2:

     Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? / No, ye fat chuffs, I would your store were here!

Onomatopoeic. Compare chug and puff.

chuff (third-person singular simple present chuffs, present participle chuffing, simple past and past participle chuffed)

1. (intransitive) To make noisy puffing sounds, as of a steam locomotive.
   • 1912, Katherine Mansfield, "The Woman At The Store", Selected Short Stories

     The horses stumbled along, coughing and chuffing.

   • 1928, D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

     […] and the small lit up train that chuffed past in the cutting made it seem like real night.

   • 1990, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest

     The pigeons chuff and chortle off in indignant disappointment.

2. (Britain, slang) To break wind.
3. To intermittantly extinguish and reignite a powder charge.
   • 1992, Luigi De Luca & ‎Martin Summerfield, Nonsteady Burning and Combustion Stability of Solid Propellants, →ISBN:

     The original work of Huffington on chuffing and oscillatory burning of cordite goes back to the beginning of the 1950s.

   • 1999, William G. Reinecke, Ballistics 18th International Symposium, →ISBN, page 357:

     Chuffing followed by full recovery to normal functioning (Figure 3)

   • 2014, V. I. Feodosiev & ‎G. B. Siniarev, Introduction to Rocket Technology, →ISBN, page 145:

     The pressure at which chuffing occurs depends on the powder composition and on the temperature of the charge. The lowering of the initial charge temperature facilitates chuffing.

chuff (countable and uncountable, plural chuffs)

1. (scriptwriting, uncountable) Superfluous small talk that is free of conflict, offers no character development, description or insight, and does not advance the story or plot.
2. A breathy noise produced by a tiger, similar in function to a cat's purr.

1520s, in sense “swollen with fat”; circa 1860, British dialect, in sense “pleased”.[2] Possibly related to “coarse, stupid, fat-headed” sense.

chuff (comparative more chuff, superlative most chuff)

1. (Britain) Pleased.
2. (obsolete) Swollen with fat.
3. (vulgar slang, of cheeks) Swollen.

• (pleased): chuffed

chuff (plural chuffs)

1. (vulgar slang) The vagina.
2. (vulgar slang) Anus.

   The car behind was following too close — it was right up my chuff.

• “chuff” at The Septic’s Companion: A British Slang Dictionary