fluff
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: compound
Topics: lifestyle
Etymology: From earlier floow (“woolly substance, down, nap, lint”), also spelt flough, flue, and flew, from West Flemish vluwe,
of uncertain ultimate origin:
* Compare Old English flōh (“that which is flown off, fragment, piece”); see flaw
* Possibly representing a blend of flue + puff; compare Middle Dutch vloe, or perhaps onomatopoeic; compare dialectal English floose, flooze, fleeze (“particles of wool or cotton; fluff; loose threads or fibres”), Danish fnug (“down, fluff”), Swedish fnugg (“speck, flake”).
* Alternatively, West Flemish vluwe may derive from French velu (“hairy, furry”), from Latin villūtus (“having shaggy hair”), from villus (“shaggy hair, tuft of hair”).
For words of similar sound and meaning in other languages, compare Japanese フワフワ (fuwafuwa, “lightly, softly”), Hungarian puha (“soft, fluffy”), Polish puchaty (“soft, fluffy”), Romanian puf (“down, peachfuzz, soft hair of some animals, powderpuff”).
Compound parts: flue
puff
Inflected forms:
form: fluffs
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: fluffs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: fluffing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: fluffed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: fluffed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Anything light, soft or fuzzy, especially fur, hair, feathers.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: [W]hen I walk in my fields I can see, down Berwick way, the little fluffs of white smoke which tell me of this strange new hundred-legged beast, with coals for food and a thousand men in its belly, for ever crawling over the border.
gloss: Anything inconsequential or superficial.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: That article was basically a bunch of fluff. It didn't say anything substantive.
gloss: A lapse or mistake, especially a mistake in an actor's lines.
pos: noun
tags: countable
informal
uncountable
gloss: A cloth diaper.
pos: noun
tags: countable
informal
slang
uncountable
gloss: Marshmallow creme.
pos: noun
tags: New-England
countable
uncountable
examples: That New England-style salami and fluff sandwich sure hit the spot!
gloss: A passive partner in a lesbian relationship.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A fart.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
Canada
New-Zealand
countable
euphemistic
uncountable
gloss: Fan fiction, or part of a fan fiction, which is sweet and feel-good in tone, usually involving romance.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
examples: And when something triggers, I can close the window and go read fluff for hours until I calm down.
Fans prefer fluff to other types of fic. But angst (dramatic stories where characters have a wide range of emotions, including...angsty ones) comes in close second.
Ah, fluff. My happy place. These fics are dedicated to feel-good feelings, which are the very best type of feelings.
gloss: A form of roleplaying which is inconsequential and not related to the plot; often used in the context of (but not limited to) filling time.
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
uncountable
gloss: Short change deliberately given by a railway clerk, to keep back money for himself.
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
obsolete
slang
uncountable
examples: "What?" cried the counter-man, indignantly. "Been a railwayman all these years, and don't know what fluff is? Why, 'pon me word, you deserve to get the sack!"
gloss: To make something fluffy.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The cat fluffed its tail.
gloss: To become fluffy, puff up.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To move lightly like fluff.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: She gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin.
gloss: To make a mistake in one's lines.
pos: verb
tags: informal
intransitive
transitive
gloss: To do incorrectly, for example mishit, miskick, miscue etc.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: Either side of Rooney's fluffed chance, it was a tale of Ukrainian domination as they attacked England down both flanks and showed the greater fluidity of the teams.
gloss: To break wind, to fart.
pos: verb
tags: Australia
euphemistic
intransitive
gloss: To arouse (a male pornographic actor) before filming.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: To get Lance Bronson hard, Chi Chi, in desperation, called Sharon Kane to come and fluff him on the set. People were always asking me how they could get a job as a fluffer.
gloss: To bring to a state of excitement.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
slang
transitive
examples: The warmup guy — as I now know is common for live audiences in taped television performances — kept fluffing the crowd like they were preschoolers.
“Now what are you going to do when we introduce the first comedian?”
Wild cheers.
“C'mon, that's not good enough! Let's try it again! What are you going to do???”
gloss: To deliberately shortchange (a railway customer) and keep the money for oneself.
pos: verb
tags: UK
obsolete
slang
examples: A genial counter-man told Mr. Manners that, if he played artful, he might even now obtain the position of outside porter; you got no pay there, but you could gain a moderate competency by fluffing.
Synonyms: schmoop
Related words: dust
lint
plumage
Derived words: autofluff
ball of fluff
bit of fluff
bumfluff
defluff
duckfluff
floof
fluffball
fluff bunny
fluffernutter
Fluffernutter
fluffery
fluffhead
fluffiness
fluffless
flufflike
flufftail
fluff-up
fluffy
Local Fluff
marshmallow fluff
fluff about
fluff-dry
fluffer
fluff girl
fluff off
fluff one's feathers
fluff one's lines
fluff out
fluff up
refluff
unfluffed
Translations: