[Goes with CUFF v.1 (q.v.).]
1. A blow with the fist, or with the open hand; a buffet. Cf. fisticuff.
1570. Levins, Manip., 183/37. A cuffe, colaphus.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., III. ii. 165. This mad-brain’d bridegroome tooke him suche a cuffe, That downe fell Priest and booke.
1635. N. R., Camden’s Hist. Eliz., IV. 493. She … gave him a cuffe on the ear.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 433, ¶ 6. Their publick Debates were generally managed with Kicks and Cuffs.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 62/1. Many a cuff did the foreman … give him for absenting himself.
b. Phr. At cuffs: at blows, fighting; to go or fall to cuffs.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 373. Vnlesse the Poet and the Player went to Cuffes in the Question.
1669. Lond. Gaz., No. 386/4. The Contest grew so high, that they began to deside the dispute at Cuffs.
1683. Autobiog. Sir J. Bramston, 140. Macedo gott drunck, and fell to cuffs with a Frenchman.
1711. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 175. He was at cuffs with a brother footman.
1720. Humourist, 54. Mutatius is generally at Cuffs with himself.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 225. And there were kings who never went To cuffs for half-a-crown.
2. transf. A blow or stroke of any kind.
1610. Mirr. Mag., 619 (T.).
| The billowes rude rouz’d into hils of water, | |
| Cuffe after cuffe the earths greene bankes did batter. |
1778. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 23 Aug. In getting out of the coach, she had given her cap some unlucky cuff.
1872. Blackie, Lays Highl., 34. Granite battlements that … stiffly bear the cuffs and buffet of the strong-armed blast.
