Also 5–7 chuffe, (8 chough). [Origin unknown. In 17th c. sometimes spelt chough by confusion with, or play on, the name of the bird.]
1. A rustic, boor, clown, churl.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 77/1. Choffe or chuffe, rusticus.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe (1871), 92. All cobbing country chuffs.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., Pref. 54. A wretched hob-nail’d Chuffe.
1631. Brathwait, Whimzies, Char. Pedler, 138. Hee carries his trinkilo’s about him; which makes the countrey choughs esteeme him a man of prize.
1715. Kersey, Chuff, a Country-clown.
So 1721. in Bailey.
2. Generally applied opprobriously, with a fitting epithet, to any person disliked; esp. a. a rude coarse churlish fellow; b. a miser, a close avaricious man Cf. boor, churl, carl, birkie, etc.
c. 1450. Henryson, Mor. Fab., 66. Though yee would thig, you verie Churlish chuffe.
1564. Becon, Displ. Popish Mass (1844), 269. Ye eat up all yourselves … O cankered carls! O churlish chuffs!
1579. Munday, Mirr. Mut., in Farr’s S. P. Eliz. (1845), I. 230. The wealthy chuffe, that makes his gold his god.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse (ed. 2), 6 b. An old straddling usurer … a fat chuffe it was.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. ii. 93. Ye gorbellied knaues … ye Fat Chuffes.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., I. ii. (Arb.), 11. Where thick-skin chuffes laugh at a schollers need.
1608. Topsell, Serpents, 780. The incivility of the rude chuffe, his host the citizen.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev. (1708), 83. There knockt at the Gate a Rich Penurious Chuff. Ibid. (1694), Fables, 315. A Less Generous Chuff then This in the Fable, would have Hugg’d his Bags to the Last.
1822. Scott, Nigel, viii. The father is held a close chuff.
1848. L. Hunt, Jar of Honey, xii. 168. Some greedy chuff of a millionaire.
1881. Leicestersh. Gloss. (E. D. S.).
