[f. FLUFF sb.1]
1. trans. Leather-manuf. (See quot.) Cf. BUFF v.
1882. Paton in Encycl. Brit., XIV. 387/1. The flesh side [of the leather] is whitened or fluffed and the grain is treated with sweet oil.
2. To make into fluff, pick into oakum.
1892. Pall Mall G., 14 March, 2/2. Looking up from the rope I was fluffing.
3. To shake out or up into a soft mass like fluff. Also refl. (of a bird): To shake or puff out its feathers.
1885. Lady Brassey, The Trades, 137. The ‘Johnny Crows’ alone are an inexhaustible fund of amusement; especially on an extra-hot day like this, when they fluff and plume and dust themselves without cessation.
1885. O. T. Miller, The ‘Tricks and Manners’ of a Cat-bird, in Harper’s Mag., LXX. March, 599. Then when all is arranged to his mind, and every feather in place, he [a bird] fluffs himself out into a ball, draws one slate-colored foot up out of sight into its feather pillow, and is ready for one to say good-night and leave him to his repose.
1887. Catherine Barter, Poor Nellie (1888), 265. The young ladies showed off the silky satins in one light and another, then fluffed them up into a kind of pyramid, and pinching them artistically at the top, left them to stand by themselves on the table.
1893. S. Grand, Heavenly Twins (1894), 279. She had also squeezed her feet into boots that were much too small for them, and fluffed her hair out till her head seemed preposterously large—by which means she had achieved the appearance known to her set as ‘stylish.’
4. intr. a. To move or float softly like fluff. b. To settle down like a ball or mass of fluff.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf-t., iii. (1885), 60. She gave the music-stool a twirl or two, and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soapsuds in a hand-basin.
1888. W. C. Russell, Death Ship, III. 221. ’Twas a true South African fog … fluffing thick and soft as feathers about the ship.
5. Slang, a. Fluff it! (see quot. 1859). b. (of railway booking-clerks) To give short change. c. To disconcert, ‘floor’ (a public speaker); (cf. FLUFF v.2 1 a). d. (Theatr.) To blunder one’s part.
1859. Slang Dict., Fluff it, a term of disapprobation implying ‘take it away, I don’t want it.’
1884. G. Moore, Mummer’s Wife, xx. 286. Mortimer was drunk, did not know his words, and went ‘fluffing’ all over the shop.
