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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

duff.

Dough.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dʌf/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɐf/Australia, New-Zealand/dʊf/Northern-England
  1. Dough.

    countable · dialectal · uncountable
  2. A stiff flour pudding, often with dried fruit, boiled in a cloth bag, or steamed.

    countable · uncountable
  3. A pudding-style dessert, especially one made with plums or (in the Bahamas) guavas.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Representing a northern England and Scots pronunciation of dough.

noun/dʌf/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɐf/Australia, New-Zealand/dʊf/Northern-England
  1. Decaying vegetable matter on the forest floor.

    British-Columbia · Northwestern · Scotland · US · countable · uncountable
  2. Coal dust, especially that left after screening or combined with other small, unsaleable bits of coal.

    countable · uncountable
  3. Fine and dry coal in small pieces, usually anthracite.

    countable · uncountable
  4. A mixture of coal and rock.

    UK · countable · uncountable
  5. The bits left in the bottom of the bag after the booty has been consumed, like crumbs.

    countable · slang · uncountable
  6. Something spurious or fake; a counterfeit; a worthless thing; a defective thing.

    countable · uncountable
  7. An error.

    countable · slang · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Uncertain; probably related to Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”).

adj/dʌf/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɐf/Australia, New-Zealand/dʊf/Northern-England
  1. Worthless; not working properly, defective.

    UK
    Why do I always get a shopping trolley with duff wheels?
Where this word comes from

Uncertain; probably related to Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”).

noun/dʌf/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɐf/Australia, New-Zealand/dʊf/Northern-England
  1. The buttocks.

    US · slang
Where this word comes from

Uncertain; perhaps the same as Etymology 1, above.

verb/dʌf/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɐf/Australia, New-Zealand/dʊf/Northern-England
  1. To disguise something to make it look new.

    obsolete · slang
  2. To sell spurious goods, often under pretence of their being stolen or smuggled.

    obsolete · slang
  3. To alter the branding of stolen cattle; to steal cattle.

    Australia
  4. To hit the ground behind the ball.

    US
Where this word comes from

Originally thieves' slang; probably a back-formation from duffer.

noun/dʌf/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɐf/Australia, New-Zealand/dʊf/Northern-England
  1. Alternative form of daf (“type of drum”).

    alt-of · alternative
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.