different between muff vs wuff

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /m?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Etymology 1

Probably from Dutch mof (“muff, mitten”).

Noun

muff (plural muffs)

1. (historical) A piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm.

   • Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.

2. (vulgar, slang) Female pubic hair; female genitals.
   1. (by extension) A woman or girl.
3. (glassblowing) A blown cylinder of glass which is afterward flattened out to make a sheet.
4. The feathers sticking out from both sides of the face under the beak of some birds.
5. A short hollow cylinder surrounding an object such as a pipe.

Synonyms

• whiskers, beard, muff and beard (bird feathers):

Related terms

• muff-diver
• muff-diving
• muff pistol

Translations

References

• “muff, n.1.”, in OED Online ?, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000
• “muff”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Etymology 2

Origin unknown; perhaps a specialised use of Etymology 1, above; or perhonaps related to Dutch muffen (“to dote”) and German muffen (“to sulk”).

Noun

muff (plural muffs)

1. (colloquial) A fool, a stupid or poor-spirited person. [from 19th c.]
   • 1860, William Makepeace Thackeray, Lovel the Widower

     Can you fancy that such an old creature (an old muff, as you call him, you wicked, satirical man!) could ever make en impression on my heart?

2. (slang, chiefly sports) An error, a mistake; a failure to hold a ball when once in the hands. [from 19th c.]
3. A bird, the whitethroat.

Translations

Verb

muff (third-person singular simple present muffs, present participle muffing, simple past and past participle muffed)

1. (sports) To drop or mishandle (the ball, a catch etc.); to play badly. [from 19th c.]
2. To mishandle; to bungle. [from 1920s]
   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 69:

     Here was the superlative opportunity to make a generous and lasting settlement from a position of strength; but the pieds noirs, like the Israelis, and from not altogether dissimilar motives, were to muff it.

Translations

Etymology 3

Shortening.

Noun

muff (plural muffs)

1. (slang) A muffin.

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [m?f]

Verb

muff

1. singular imperative of muffen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of muffen

Hungarian

Etymology

From German Muff, from Dutch mof ("muff"), from Middle Dutch moffel, from Middle French moufle ("mitten"), from Medieval Latin muffula ("fur-lined glove"), of unknown origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?muf?]
• Hyphenation: muff
• Rhymes: -uf?

Noun

muff (plural muffok)

1. (archaic) muff (handwarmer)
2. (slang) vagina
3. (slang) woman

Declension

Further reading

• muff in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmez? szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: ?ISBN

English

Pronunciation

Noun

wuff (plural wuffs)

1. Alternative form of woof (“dog's bark”)
2. (slang, endearing) A wolf.

Verb

wuff (third-person singular simple present wuffs, present participle wuffing, simple past and past participle wuffed)

1. Alternative form of woof (“to bark”)

German

Interjection

wuff

1. woof

Synonyms

• wau