tiff

• Rhymes: -ɪf

Originally, a sniff, sniffing; compare Icelandic word for a smell.

tiff (plural tiffs)

1. A small argument; a petty quarrel.
   • 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, Catherine: A Story

     There’s Tom, now, since this tiff with Mrs. Cat, the scoundrel plays the Grand Turk here!

2. Liquor; especially, a small draught of liquor.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     sipping his tiff of brandy punch.

tiff (third-person singular simple present tiffs, present participle tiffing, simple past and past participle tiffed)

1. (intransitive) To quarrel.
   • Landor

     She tiffed with Tim, she ran from Ralph.

• See also Thesaurus:squabble

From Middle English tiffen, Old French tiffer, tifer ("to bedizen"; > Modern French attifer), from Frankish *tipfōn, *tippōn (“to decorate”), perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *tuppaz (“top, tip”). Compare Dutch tippen (“to clip the points or ends of the hair”), Old Norse tippa (“point, tip”), English tip (noun), Middle High German zipfen (“to prance; skip; sashay; bob; flutter; frisk”).

tiff (third-person singular simple present tiffs, present participle tiffing, simple past and past participle tiffed)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To deck out; to dress.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of A. Tucker to this entry?)

tiff (third-person singular simple present tiffs, present participle tiffing, simple past and past participle tiffed)

1. (British India, intransitive) To have lunch.
   • 1841, The Asiatic journal and monthly register

     Besides that one to which the permanent residence was attached, Mr. Augustus had several outlaying factories, which he visited from time to time, to superintend the manufacture of his indigo; at all of these he had little bungalows, or temporary abodes, where we tiffed and passed the heat of the day.

• tiffin

• fift