scuff

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /skʌf/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /skɐf/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /skʊf/
• Rhymes: -ʌf

From Scots scuff (“to touch lightly, graze, hit”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old Norse skúfa (“to shove, push aside”), from Proto-Germanic *skeubaną (“to shove”). Or, perhaps imitative. More at English shove.

scuff (third-person singular simple present scuffs, present participle scuffing, simple past and past participle scuffed)

1. To scrape the feet while walking.
2. To scrape and roughen the surface of (shoes, etc.)
3. To hit lightly, to brush against.
   • 1979, V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River:

     The lawns and gardens had been scuffed away.

   • 2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record‎^[1]:

     Wallace threw himself at it to connect with a flying header. He looked a certain scorer but his effort scuffed the inside of Fraser Forster’s post.

4. To mishit (a shot on a ball) due to poor contact with the ball.
   • 2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC‎^[2]:

     The Montenegro captain was finding space at will and followed up with a speculative shot that he scuffed wide, after Wales were slow in closing down the Juventus striker.

• scuff up

• scuffle

scuff (plural scuffs)

1. (sometimes attributive) A mark left by scuffing or scraping.

   Someone left scuff marks in the sand.

   • 2015, Charles W. Jones, Hydrangeas on the Lanai:

     He flung his shoes across the room, their soles leaving black scuffs on the dingy wall.

2. The sound of a scuff or scrape.
   • 2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

     All you could hear was the rhythmic scuff of Mr. Stink’s battered brogues as he walked slowly along the road

3. (Australia, New Zealand) A slipper.
4. (Scotland, uncommon) A (sudden) shower of rain or mist.

   Coordinate term: scud

   • 1895, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Men of the Moss-hags: Being a History of Adventure Taken from the Papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway and, page 313:

     It was a dark, gloomy day, with black clouds driven by the wind, and scuffs of grey showers scudding among the hilltops. Presently lying couched amid the heather we saw the dragoons come marching loosely two and two, […]

   • 1902, Nicholas Dickson, William Sanderson, The Border Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, page 159:

     and when I got [to] the shoulder of the Craig yonder, cold scuffs of mist were reaching down from higher up, that told me how my view was to be spoiled, and warned me to mind my path. But I knew the heights; many a time have I been caught in the descending clouds, and a mist was like an old friend.

   • 1910, Nicholas Dickson, William Sanderson, The Border Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, page 52:

     When, having lunched, we breasted the climbing path in the early afternoon, the mists came down on Dollar Law, and across the valley drifted "scuffs" of soft rain that soaked us ere we topped the summit of the Bitch Craig. The grasses were top-heavy with beads of water, and rudely shook themselves over our boots as we squelched through them, […]

• scuff mark

• scuffed

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Scuff”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.

See scuft

scuff (plural scuffs)

2. A scurf; a scale.
3. The back part of the neck; the scruff.
   • 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do with It?:

     One of the biggest and most redoubted of the Black Family was now in that seat of dignity, and, refusing surlily to yield it at Jasper's rude summons, was seized by the scuff of the neck, and literally hurled on the table in front.

• scoff
• scruff

• Cuffs, cuffs