cuff

name

Etymology: Various etymologies: * As an English surname, from Middle English cuffe (“glove”); see cuff. * As an Irish surname, from mac duibh (“son of the dark one”), see Duff. * As a Cornish surname, from cuf (“kind, dear”), from Proto-Celtic *koymo- (“nice, dear”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos (“village, home”); see home.

1. A surname.

noun

1. The scruff of the neck.

verb

Etymology: 1520, “to hit”, apparently of North Germanic origin, from Norwegian kuffa (“to push, shove”) or Swedish kuffa (“to knock, thrust, strike”), from the Proto-Germanic base *skuf- (skuƀ), from Proto-Indo-European *skewbʰ-, see also Lithuanian skùbti (“to hurry”), Polish skubać (“to pluck”), Albanian humb (“to lose”). Germanic cognates include Low German kuffen (“to box the ears”), German kuffen (“to thrash”). More at scuff, shove, scuffle.

1. To hit, as a reproach, particularly with the open palm to the head; to slap.

   “I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.”

   “[They] with their quills did all the hurt they could, / And cuff'd the tender chickens from their food.”

2. To fight; to scuffle; to box.

   “While the peers cuff to make the rabble sport.”

3. To buffet.

   “cuffed by the gale”