[app. connected with FLUE sb.2; perh. an onomatopœic modification of that word, imitating the action of puffing away some light substance; cf. FLUFF sb.2 and v.2 An OE. *fluȝ-, fluh, f. root of FLY v.1, would, however, if it existed, account for both words; cf. LG. flug, flog fine. Not in Johnson or Todd.]
1. Light, feathery, flocculent stuff, such as the downy particles that separate from dressed wool.
1790. Grose, Prov. Gloss. (ed. 2), Fluff. Down. The fluff of a peach. Kent.
1818. J. Brown, Psyche, 171.
| The very thing that Ned was doing, | |
| His eye, which had begun by wooing | |
| Some fluff, upon his cousin’s cape, | |
| Effected thence a prompt escape. |
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Fluff, any light, flying, downy, gossamer-like stuff.
1880. Howells, Undisc. Country, xii. 173. A little fluff under the bed or a spot upon the floor would have been a comfort to her; but everything was blamelessly, hopelessly neat.
b. The soft fur of a rabbit or other animal.
1883. F. Carruthers Gould, Sport from an Animal’s Point of View, in The Leisure Hour, XXXII. 613/2. The hounds being young and giddy, more than half of them ran riot, and giving up the nobler game dashed after the little fugitives, and next day they sneaked back to the kennels with rabbits’ fluff in their jaws, and a sound thrashing they got.
c. ? Soft feathery material for dress.
1875. Tennyson, Q. Mary, I. iv.
| And if this Prince of fluff and feather come | |
| To woo you, niece, he is dangerous every way. |
2. a. A soft, downy mass or bunch.
1862. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett. (1883), III. 127. Larks come with feathers all in a fluff.
1885. E. Garrett, At Any Cost, xv. 277. A young woman, dressed in thin garments of tawdry finery, with a fluff of golden hair about her face, like a neglected aureole, and with blue eyes which looked like faded forget-me-nots.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, II. xxiii. 27. You are like an undulating billow warmed by the sun. And all this fluff of muslin about you is the froth.
b. Something downy and feathery.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 46. Both him and the snow-bird I love better to see, tiny fluffs of feathered life, as they scurry about in a driving mist of snow, than in this serene air.
1888. T. Gray in Encycl. Brit., XXIII. 129. Sometimes he [Edison] used what he describes as a fluff, that is, a little brush of silk fibre with plumbago rubbed into it.
3. slang. a. On railways (see quots.); b. Theatr. ‘“Lines” half learned and imperfectly delivered’ (Farmer).
1874. Slang Dict., Fluff, railway ticket clerks’ slang for short change given by them. The profits thus accruing are called ‘fluffings,’ and the practice is known as ‘fluffing.’
1890. Star, 27 Jan., 2/4. Many porters on this line are but getting 15s. per week, and with regard to ‘tips,’ or, as we say ‘fluff’—well [etc.].
1891. World, 3 June, 28/1. Even as seen through a veil of ‘fluff,’ the burlesque is irresistibly amusing.
