stuff
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /stʌf/
ipa: /stɐf/
ipa: /stʊf/
rhymes: -ʌf
Forms: form: stuffs
Etymology: From Middle English stuf, stuffe, borrowed from Medieval Latin stuffa and its etymon Old French estofe, estoffe, estuf, estuffe, stoffe, from estoffer, estofer (“to provide what is necessary, equip, stuff”), borrowed from Old High German stoffōn, from Proto-West Germanic *stoppōn (“to clog up, block, fill”). More at stop.
Senses: examples: text: What is all that stuff on your bedroom floor?  He didn't want his pockets to bulge so he was walking around with all his stuff in his hands.
text: The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
ref: 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:
glosses: Miscellaneous items or objects; (with possessive) personal effects.
examples: text: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff.
ref: 1611, Bible, 1 Samuel 25:13, KJV:
text: He took away locks, and gave away the king's stuff.
ref: 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI:
glosses: Miscellaneous items or objects; (with possessive) personal effects.
Furniture; goods; domestic vessels or utensils.
examples: text: I had to do some stuff.
glosses: Unspecified things or matters.
examples: text: The workman on his stuff his skill doth show, / And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill.
ref: 1697, John Davies, A Poem on the Immortality of the Soul:
text: Pound an onion, warm a spoonful of ghee and throw in the onion, brown it slightly, add your curry stuff, brown this till it smells pleasantly, […]
ref: 1887, Indian Cookery "Local" for Young Housekeepers: Second Edition, page 67:
synonyms: word: matter
word: ingredients
word: constituents
word: corporeity
word: body
word: mass
word: material
word: matter
word: stuff
word: substance
glosses: The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
examples: text: Without waiting for a reply, she unbound the veil from her head, and took off the loose black novice's robe, which she had put over a gray stuff dress similar to that worn by Lucy.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 51:
text: "And you can buy a dress for your wife off this piece of stuff," said Lisetta, who had always an eye to business.
ref: 1857, The National Magazine, volumes 10-11, page 350:
text: She was going out to buy some lengths of good woollen stuff for Louise's winter dresses.
ref: 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, page 147:
synonyms: word: matter
word: ingredients
word: constituents
word: corporeity
word: body
word: mass
word: material
word: matter
word: stuff
word: substance
glosses: The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
A material for making clothing; any woven textile, but especially a woollen fabric.
synonyms: word: matter
word: ingredients
word: constituents
word: corporeity
word: body
word: mass
word: material
word: matter
word: stuff
word: substance
glosses: The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
Boards used for building.
examples: text: When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], lines 91–94:
text: We are such stuff / As dreams are made on
ref: c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1, 156–157::
synonyms: word: matter
word: ingredients
word: constituents
word: corporeity
word: body
word: mass
word: material
word: matter
word: stuff
word: substance
glosses: The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
Abstract/figurative substance or character.
synonyms: word: matter
word: ingredients
word: constituents
word: corporeity
word: body
word: mass
word: material
word: matter
word: stuff
word: substance
glosses: The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
Paper stock ground ready for use. When partly ground, it is called half stuff.
examples: text: Can I have some of that stuff on my ice-cream sundae?
text: It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless.[…]You stand by, Janet, and wake me up if they do any of that running commentary stuff.”
ref: 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 3, in Death on the Centre Court:
text: The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).
ref: 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
synonyms: word: doodad
word: thingamabob
word: Sorted by number of Google hits
word: widget
word: hickey
word: gizmo
word: thingy
word: gimmick
word: thingie
word: jigger
word: gismo
word: gubbins
word: whatsit
word: thingamajig
word: doodad
word: whatchamacallit
word: doohickey
word: thingo
word: thingamabob
word: thingummy
word: whatsis
word: thingumajig
word: thingumabob
word: whatchacallit
word: Sorted alphabetically
word: affair
word: bazinga
word: bizzo
word: dealie
word: dealy
word: dinglehopper
word: dingus
word: dohickey
word: dojigger
word: dongle
word: doo-hickey
word: doober
word: doodah
word: doofer
word: doohickus
word: doohinkey
word: doohinkus
word: doojigger
word: doovalacky
word: foobar
word: foo
word: frammis
word: frobnitz
word: gadget
word: geegaw
word: gewgaw
word: gingambob
word: gingumbob
word: hodad
word: hootenanny
word: jawn
word: jimbang
word: jobber
word: jobby
word: joint
word: junk
word: kajigger
word: kludge
word: MacGuffin
word: oojamaflip
word: rigamajig
word: shebang
word: stuff
word: thingabob
word: thingamabobber
word: thingamafuck
word: thingamajigger
word: thingamajiggy
word: thingmabob
word: thingmajig
word: thingmy
word: thingummabob
word: thingummajig
word: thingummyjig
word: thingum
word: thingymabob
word: thingymajig
word: thing
word: ting
word: whachacallit
word: whachamacallit
word: whaddayacallit
word: whatchamahoozie
word: whatdyecallem
word: whatdoyoucallit
word: whatnot
word: whatsaname
word: whatsitsname
word: whiff-whaff
word: whosiewhatsit
word: whosit
word: wossisname
word: wossname
word: wotsit
word: yoke
word: yokibus
glosses: Used as placeholder, usually for material of unknown type or name.
examples: text: For some idiotic reason the bureaucrats are more opposed to tea than to stuff.
ref: 1947, William Burroughs, letter, 11 March:
text: For example, one addict would crack shorts (break and enter cars) and usually obtain just enough stolen goods to buy stuff and get off just before getting sick.
ref: 1975, Mary Sanches, Ben G. Blount, Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, page 47:
synonyms: word: dope
word: gear
word: recreational drug
word: drug
word: dope
word: gear
word: horse
word: stuff
word: substance
glosses: Narcotic drugs, especially heroin.
examples: text: I[…]did compound for her / A certaine ſtuffe, which being tane, would ceaſe / The preſent powre of life[…].
ref: 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene v], page 397, column 1:
glosses: A medicine or mixture; a potion.
examples: text: Don't give me any of that 'what-about' stuff!
text: Anger would indite / Such woeful stuff as I or Shadwell write.
ref: 1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The First Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:
text: But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine, / With yellow kid gloves and a ruff— / Said he felt it exactly like going to dine, / Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff."
ref: 1874–1876 (date written), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Fit the Fit the Fourth.⁠ The Hunting.”, in The Hunting of the Snark […], London: Macmillan and Co., published March 1876, →OCLC:
text: Oh, stuff, Julia! I've given up chasing after will-o'-the-wisps like that.
ref: 1912, Upton Sinclair, The Machine:
synonyms: word: garbage
word: rubbish
word: nonsense
word: stuff and nonsense
word: cultch
word: crap
word: debris
word: dreck
word: drek
word: garbage
word: junk
word: litter
word: pelf
word: piece of crap
word: piece of garbage
word: piece of shit
word: pile of crap
word: pile of shit
word: piece of trash
word: rubbish
word: refuse
word: roughage
word: service item
word: shit
word: stuff
word: trash
word: waste
word: absurdity
word: all my eye
word: all my eye and Betty Martin
word: applesauce
word: bafflegab
word: balderdash
word: balls
word: baloney
word: banana oil
word: Bandini
word: baragouin
word: batcrap
word: batshit
word: bilgewater
word: blah
word: blather
word: blatherskite
word: bobbins
word: bollocks
word: bosh
word: BS
word: bull
word: bullcrap
word: bulldust
word: bull feathers
word: bullshit
word: bullspeak
word: bunk
word: bunkum
word: bushwah
word: clamjamfrey
word: claptrap
word: cobblers
word: codswallop
word: crap
word: crock
word: crock of shit
word: double Dutch
word: double talk
word: doublespeak
word: dribble
word: drivel
word: eyewash
word: fiddle-faddle
word: flapdoodle
word: flim-flam
word: flizz
word: flummery
word: folderol
word: foolishness
word: footle
word: framis
word: fuckery
word: fuckry
word: fudge
word: galimatias
word: garbage
word: garble
word: gibber
word: gibberish
word: gobbledygook
word: gossip
word: Greek
word: guff
word: gup
word: hoax
word: hocus-pocus
word: hogwash
word: hokum
word: hooey
word: horsefeathers
word: horse hockey
word: horse piss
word: horse puckey
word: horseshit
word: humbug
word: Irish bull
word: jabber
word: jargon
word: jibber-jabber
word: jimjam
word: jive
word: junk
word: lallation
word: macaroni
word: malarkey
word: manure
word: meaninglessness
word: moonshine
word: mumbo jumbo
word: nertz
word: nonsense
word: pie in the sky
word: piffle
word: pigswill
word: poppycock
word: prattle
word: put-on
word: rhubarb
word: rhubarb rhubarb
word: rigmarole
word: rot
word: rubbish
word: ruse
word: santorum
word: shit
word: shite
word: skimble-skamble
word: squit
word: stuff
word: stuff and nonsense
word: tommy-rot
word: tosh
word: tush
word: trash
word: tripe
word: twaddle
word: wass
word: whiff-whaff
word: word salad
glosses: Refuse or worthless matter; hence, also, foolish or irrational language.
examples: text: The master, at my earnest solicitation, examined his vessel, and though he prefers the coal tar, yet he told me, there were shells sticking on, and that a very thin coat of stuff, if any, remained.
ref: 1785, Pamphlets on British Shipping. 1785-1861, page 36:
text: On the last transverse planking, after: caulking and paying, he has laid on a coat of stuff, so hard when cold aš to resist a firm touch, and applied plain paper, then took heated band irons (such as women use) , and passed the iron from the centre of the sheet to the extremities, thus heating the stuff to make it adhere, pressing out the air, and laying it all flat and united with the course.
ref: 1822, William Annesley, A New System of Naval Architecture, page 31:
text: While the ships were placed in ordinary “a thick coat of stuff” was applied to the hulls, and their awnings might be spread or sheds erected to provide some protection from sun and weather.
ref: 2012, Thomas Williams, American Honor: The Story of Admiral Charles Stewart, page 561:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A melted mass of turpentine, tallow, etc., with which the masts, sides, and bottom of a ship are smeared for lubrication.
qualifier: criminal argot
glosses: Money.
Synonyms: sense: Placeholder name
word: thingy
Derived terms: and stuff
breadstuff
don't sweat the small stuff
drinkstuff
dyestuff
feeding stuff
feedingstuff
feedstuff
folding stuff
foodstuff
good stuff
joy-to-stuff ratio
kid stuff
made of sterner stuff
right stuff
same old stuff
sob stuff
sourstuff
stuff and nonsense
stuffaroni
stuff dreams are made of
stuffing
stuff sack
waterstuff