cuff

• IPA^(key): /kʌf/
• Rhymes: -ʌf

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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-West Germanic *kuffju, from Proto-Germanic *kupjō (“cap”). Cognate with Middle High German kupfe (“cap”).

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (obsolete) Glove; mitten
2. The end of a shirt sleeve that covers the wrist.
3. The end of a pants leg when folded up.

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To furnish with cuffs.

• cufflinks
• turnup
• off-the-cuff

Clipping of handcuff.

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (informal, plural only) A handcuff.

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To handcuff.

1520, “to hit”, apparently of North Germanic origin, from Norwegian kuffa (“to push, shove”) or Swedish kuffa (“to knock, thrust, strike”), from the Proto-Germanic base *skuf- (skuƀ), from Proto-Indo-European *skewbʰ-, see also Lithuanian skùbti (“to hurry”), Polish skubać (“to pluck”), Albanian humb (“to lose”).

Germanic cognates include Low German kuffen (“to box the ears”), German kuffen (“to thrash”). More at scuff, shove, scuffle.

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To hit, as a reproach, particularly with the open palm to the head; to slap.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.

   • 1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:

     [They] with their quills did all the hurt they could, / And cuff'd the tender chickens from their food.

2. (intransitive) To fight; to scuffle; to box.
   • 1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Eighth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:

     While the peers cuff to make the rabble sport.

3. To buffet.
   • 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “Maud”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 24:

     cuffed by the gale

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. A blow, especially with the open hand; a box; a slap.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 17:

     The Sarazin sore daunted with the buffe / Snatcheth his sword, and fiercely to him flies; / Who well it wards, and quyteth cuff with cuff:

   • 1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:

     many a bitter kick and cuff

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (Scotland) The scruff of the neck.