cuff
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kʌf/
- Rhymes: -ʌf
Etymology 1
From Middle English cuffe, coffe (“glove, mitten”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old English cuffie (“hood, cap”), from Medieval Latin cofia, cofea, cuffa, cuphia (“helmet, headdress, hood, cap”), from Frankish *kuf(f)ja (“headdress”), from Proto-Germanic *kupjō (“cap”). Cognate with Middle High German kupfe (“cap”).
Noun
cuff (plural cuffs)
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
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Verb
cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)
- (transitive) To furnish with cuffs.
- (transitive) To handcuff.
Translations
Etymology 2
1520, “to hit”, apparently of North Germanic origin, from Norwegian kuffa (“to push, shove”) or Swedish kuffa (“to knock, thrust, strike”). Related to Low German kuffen (“to box the ears”), German kuffen (“to thrash”). Perhaps related also to Swedish skuffa (“to push, shove”). More at scuff, shove, scuffle.
Verb
cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)
- (transitive) To hit, as a reproach, particularly with the open palm to the head; to slap.
- Shakespeare
- I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.
- Dryden
- They with their quills did all the hurt they could, / And cuffed the tender chickens from their food.
- Shakespeare
- (intransitive) To fight; to scuffle; to box.
- Dryden
- While the peers cuff to make the rabble sport.
- Dryden
- To buffet.
- Tennyson
- cuffed by the gale
- Tennyson
Translations
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Noun
cuff (plural cuffs)