oof

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /uːf/, /ʊf/
• (General American) enPR: ūf, IPA^(key): /uf/
• Rhymes: -uːf, -ʊf

(onomatopoeia)

oof

1. A sound mimicking the loss of air, as if someone's solar plexus had just been struck.

Clipping of ooftish

oof (uncountable)

1. (Britain, slang, dated) Money. [c. 1850 – c. 1940]
   • 1888, H. Rider Haggard, Colonel Quaritch V.C. (archive.org ebook), page 232:

     “Oh,” Johnnie was saying, “so Quest is his name, is it, and he lives in a city called Boisingham, does he? Is he an oof bird?” (rich)
     “Rather,” answered the Tiger, “if only one can make the dollars run, but he's a nasty mean boy, he is.

   • 1900, Harry B. Norris, Burlington Bertie (song)

     Burlington Bertie's the latest young jay
     He rents a swell flat somewhere Kensington way
     He spends the good oof that his pater has made
     Along with the Brandy and Soda Brigade.

   • 1911–1912, published 1916, Gilbert Parker, The World For Sale, book 2, chapter 10 (Gutenberg ebook, archive.org ebook):

     What's he after? Oof—oof—oof, that's what he's after. He's for his own pocket, he's for being boss of all the woolly West. He's after keeping us poor and making himself rich.

   • 1991 May 12, "Kidnapped!" Jeeves and Wooster, Series 2, Episode 5:

     Chuffy: It's on a knife edge at the moment, Bertie. If he can get planning permission, old Stoker's going to take this heap off my hands in return for vast amounts of oof.

• See Thesaurus:money

• feathered oof-bird (“large source of money”)
• make the oof-bird walk (“to circulate money”)
• oof-bag (“source of money”)
• oof-bird (“source of money”)
• oofless (“poor”)
• oofy (“rich”)
• pad the oof (“to fold banknotes to appear twice as much”)

• Farmer, John Stephen (1902) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 5, page 107
• “oof” (US) / “oof” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.

• Foo, foo, foo'