muff

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /mʌf/
• Rhymes: -ʌf

Probably from Dutch mof (“muff, mitten”).

muff (plural muffs)

1. (historical) A piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm.
   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.

2. (slang) Female pubic hair; the vulva.
3. (glassblowing) A blown cylinder of glass which is afterward flattened out to make a sheet.
4. The feathers sticking out from both sides of the face under the beak of some birds.
5. A short hollow cylinder surrounding an object such as a pipe.

• whiskers, beard, muff and beard (bird feathers):

• muff-diver
• muff-diving
• muff pistol

Origin unknown; perhaps a specialised use of Etymology 1, above; or perhaps related to Dutch muffen (“to dote”) and German muffen (“to sulk”).

muff (plural muffs)

1. (colloquial) A fool, a stupid or poor-spirited person. [from 19th c.]
   • Thackeray

     a muff of a curate

2. (slang, chiefly sports) An error, a mistake; a failure to hold a ball when once in the hands. [from 19th c.]
3. A bird, the whitethroat.

muff (third-person singular simple present muffs, present participle muffing, simple past and past participle muffed)

1. (sports) To drop or mishandle (the ball, a catch etc.); to play badly. [from 19th c.]
2. To mishandle; to bungle. [from 1920s]
   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 69:

     Here was the superlative opportunity to make a generous and lasting settlement from a position of strength; but the pieds noirs, like the Israelis, and from not altogether dissimilar motives, were to muff it.

Shortening.

muff (plural muffs)

1. (slang) A muffin.

• IPA^(key): [mʊf]

muff

1. Imperative singular of muffen.
2. (colloquial) First-person singular present of muffen.

From German Muff, from Dutch mof ("muff"), from Middle Dutch moffel, from Middle French moufle ("mitten"), from Medieval Latin muffula ("fur-lined glove"), of unknown origin.

• IPA^(key): [ˈmufː]
• Hyphenation: muff

muff (plural muffok)

1. (archaic) muff (handwarmer)
2. (slang) vagina
3. (slang) woman