Ruff

Quick meaning: Ruff is a noun meaning A circular frill or ruffle on a garment, especially a starched, fluted frill at the neck in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (1560s–1620s).

Meaning

A circular frill or ruffle on a garment, especially a starched, fluted frill at the neck in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (1560s–1620s).

More Meanings

1. Anything formed with plaits or flutings like a frill.
2. Senses relating to animals.
3. (engineering) A collar on a shaft or other piece to prevent endwise motion.
4. (transitive) To shape (fabric, etc.) into a ruff; to adorn (a garment, etc.) with a ruff.
5. (transitive, falconry) Of a falcon, hawk, etc.: to hit (the prey) without fixing or grabbing hold of it.
6. (obsolete) An exhibition of haughtiness or pride.
7. (obsolete) Tumultuous or wanton conduct or procedure.

Example Sentences

"Just look here! I am a parson now. Here is both the gown and the ruff!"

The stroke of the cut-off valves is very short, and the ruffs on the parts, g, g, regulate its length.

This plate has a slot in it lengthwise to admit of its being shifted a sixth part of the circumference of the ruff,[…].

"When we first forgathered, I was sitting on the floor with a chair round my neck." "Like an Elizabethan ruff, as worn by Thomas Botway." "Otway," I said stiffly.

Word Forms

• ruffs
• ruffing
• ruffed
• ruffer
• ruffest

Synonyms for ruff

Depending on context, synonyms include roughy, trump, ruffle, choker, trumping.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include choker, ruffle, trumping, trump, sluff, whoa.

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