[f. FUZZ sb.1]
1. intr. (See quots.) Also to fuzz out.
1701. in J. K., Dict.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), To Fuzz, to ravel or run out, as some sorts of Stuff and Silk do.
1753. Mrs. Delany, Lett. to Mrs. Dewes, in Life & Corr. (1862), 258. Have you begun the shade for your toilette? If not, I believe you must do it to wash, for the catgut in time grows very limp, and the silk fuses.
1840. Smart, Fuzz, to fly out in small particles.
1862. Miss Yonge, Countess Kate, ix. (1881), 93. She had … a little flounced frock of dark silk figured with blue, that looked slightly fuzzed out.
2. trans. To cover with fine or minute particles.
1851. S. Judd, Margaret, XVII. The signal was made, and they flashed away. Falling into all sorts of order, some went crankling and sheering, some described somersets, others were knocked stern-foremost; but on, on, they flew, skittering, bowling, sluice-like, mad-like; Margaret glided over the mounds, she leaped the hollows, going on with a ricochet motion, pulsating from swell to swell, humming, whizzing, the fine grail glancing in her eyes and fuzzing her face; her hood fell back over her shoulders, her hair streamed bandrols in the wind; she reined her sled-rope, as if it had been the snaffle of a high-spirited horse: she passed the first fence, and the second—others were near her—some lodged on the fences, some dropped in the street. Three or four sleds were in full chase through the orchard, they gained the Green, where momentum exhausted itself. Margaret was evidently foremost and farthest.
Hence Fuzzing ppl. a.
1775. Ash, Fuzzing, flying off in small parts, fretting out in small particles.
