different between stuff vs cleaner

English

Etymology

From Middle English stuffen (“to equip, furnish”), from Old French estoffer ("to provide what is necessary, equip, stuff"; > French étoffer and étouffer), from Frankish *stopf?n, *stopp?n (“to cram, plug, stuff”), from Proto-Germanic *stupp?n? (“to clog up, block, fill”). Cognate with Old High German stoff?n, stopf?n (“to plug, stuff”), Old English stoppian (“to stop up, close”) and Albanian shtyp (“to press, squeeze, stuff”). Compare Dutch stof, and German Stoff. More at stop.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Noun

stuff (usually uncountable, plural stuffs)

1. (informal) Miscellaneous items or objects; (with possessive) personal effects.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

   1. (obsolete, uncountable) Furniture; goods; domestic vessels or utensils.
      • 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI,

        He took away locks, and gave away the king's stuff.

2. (informal) Unspecified things or matters.

3. The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object — as for example breadstuff into bread, or (more figuratively) the right stuff into an astronaut.

   Synonyms: matter, ingredients, constituents; see also Thesaurus:substance

   • 1697, John Davies, A Poem on the Immortality of the Soul

     The workman on his stuff his skill doth show, / And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill.
   1. (archaic) A material for making clothing; any woven textile, but especially a woollen fabric.
      • 1857, The National Magazine (volumes 10-11, page 350)

        "And you can buy a dress for your wife off this piece of stuff," said Lisetta, who had always an eye to business.

      • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p.147:

        She was going out to buy some lengths of good woollen stuff for Louise's winter dresses.

   2. (archaic) Boards used for building.
   3. Abstract/figurative substance or character.
      • c.1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2, 91–94:

        When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff

      • c.1610, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1, 156–157:

        We are such stuff / As dreams are made on

   4. Paper stock ground ready for use. When partly ground, it is called half stuff.

      (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

4. (informal) Used as placeholder, usually for material of unknown type or name.

   Synonyms: doodad, thingamabob; see also Thesaurus:thingy
5. (slang) Narcotic drugs, especially heroin.

   Synonyms: dope, gear; see also Thesaurus:recreational drug

   • 1947, William Burroughs, letter, 11 March:

     For some idiotic reason the bureaucrats are more opposed to tea than to stuff.

   • 1975, Mary Sanches, Ben G. Blount, Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use (page 47)

     For example, one addict would crack shorts (break and enter cars) and usually obtain just enough stolen goods to buy stuff and get off just before getting sick.

6. (obsolete) A medicine or mixture; a potion.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

7. (obsolete) Refuse or worthless matter; hence, also, foolish or irrational language; nonsense; trash.

   Synonyms: garbage, rubbish; see also Thesaurus:trash

   • Anger would indite / Such woeful stuff as I or Shadwell write.
8. (nautical) A melted mass of turpentine, tallow, etc., with which the masts, sides, and bottom of a ship are smeared for lubrication.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ham. Nav. Encyc to this entry?)

9. (slang, criminal argot, dated) Money.

Usage notes

• The textile sense is increasingly specialized and sounds dated in everyday contexts. In the UK & Commonwealth it designates the cloth from which legal and academic gowns are made, except for the gowns of Queen's/King's/State Counsel, which are (often in contradistinction) made of silk.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

stuff (third-person singular simple present stuffs, present participle stuffing, simple past and past participle stuffed)

1. (transitive) To fill by packing or crowding something into; to cram with something; to load to excess.

   I'm going to stuff this pillow with feathers.

   • Lest the gods, for sin, / Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin.

2. (transitive) To fill a space with (something) in a compressed manner.
   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.
3. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this redundant sense?) (transitive, cooking) To fill with seasoning.

4. (transitive) To load goods into (a container) for transport.
5. (transitive, used in the passive) To sate.

6. (takes a reflexive pronoun) To eat, especially in a hearty or greedy manner.

   Synonyms: fill one's face, feed one's face, stuff one's face

   She sits on the sofa all day, watching TV and stuffing herself with cream buns.

7. (transitive, Britain, Australia, New Zealand) To break; to destroy.

8. (transitive, vulgar, Britain, Australia, New Zealand) To sexually penetrate.

   Synonyms: fuck, root, screw

   His wife came home early and found him on the couch stuffing the maid.

9. (transitive, mildly vulgar, often imperative) Used to contemptuously dismiss or reject something. See also stuff it.
10. (informal) To heavily defeat or get the better of.

    Mudchester Rovers were stuffed 7-0 in the semi-final.

    They totally stuffed us in that business deal.

11. (transitive) To cut off another competitor in a race by disturbing his projected and committed racing line (trajectory) by an abrupt manoeuvre.

12. To preserve a dead bird or other animal by filling its skin.
13. (transitive) To obstruct, as any of the organs; to affect with some obstruction in the organs of sense or respiration.
14. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this redundant sense?) (transitive) To form or fashion by packing with the necessary material.
    • 1724, Jonathan Swift, Drapier's Letters, 5

      An Eastern king put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal.

15. (transitive, dated) To crowd with facts; to cram the mind of; sometimes, to crowd or fill with false or idle tales or fancies.
16. (transitive, computing) To compress (a file or files) in the StuffIt format, to be unstuffed later.

Derived terms

Translations

References

• stuff at OneLook Dictionary Search
• stuff in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Tuffs, tuffs

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kli.n?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kli?.n?/
• Rhymes: -i?n?(?)

Etymology 1

clean +? -er (“agent noun”)

Noun

cleaner (plural cleaners)

1. A person whose occupation is to clean floors, windows and other things.
2. A device that cleans, such as the vacuum cleaner.
3. A substance used for cleaning, a cleaning agent.
4. (in the plural) A professional laundry or dry cleaner (business). (This form is now interpreted as plural and usually spelled without an apostrophe, even in official usage, to justify the removal of the apostrophe. It was traditionally spelled cleaner's with an apostrophe because this is grammatically correct, as can be seen with forms such as go to the doctor's, which cannot be reinterpreted as plural.)

   I'll have to take this shirt to the cleaners.

5. (slang) A hitman; a hired assassin, usually in the employ of an organized crime syndicate, such as the mafia.

Derived terms

• cleaner fish
• vacuum cleaner

Related terms

• (sense 3) cleanser
• take to the cleaners

Translations

Etymology 2

clean + -er

Adjective

cleaner

1. comparative form of clean: more clean

Anagrams

• Carlene, reclean