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Fluff   /fləf/   Listen
Fluff

noun
1.
Any light downy material.
2.
Something of little value or significance.  Synonyms: bagatelle, frippery, frivolity.
3.
A blunder (especially an actor's forgetting the lines).



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"Fluff" Quotes from Famous Books



... great courtesy, making her dress balloon out about her; then she clasped her hands at her throat, her chin resting on the fluff of her white undersleeves, and looked up at him with a delighted laugh. "We are not very old, either of us; I am thirty-three and you are only forty-six—I call that young. Oh, Lloyd, I was so low- spirited this morning; and now—you are here!" She ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... be, it's got to be. And you were wrong not to tell me at once. That is the way with you doctors. You are so in the habit of dealing with hysterical women and hypochondriacs that you forget that a man is shaped by nature to bear the naked truth without having it rigged up beforehand in a lot of fluff to disguise its shape. I think I understand. I may live a while longer. And I may not. The same thing could be ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... thy cup will be, e'en were the virtue thine to stop the loom, Thine though the gift the willow fluff to sing, pity who will thy doom? High in the trees doth hang the girdle of white jade, And lo! among the snow ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... fell on her knees with her arms outstretched to the rampaging ball of white fluff and high spirits, the which thinking it some new game squatted back on its hind legs with the front ones wide apart, gave an infantile squeak, and whizzed round three times apparently for luck, as ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... in days not very distant, Though the memory gives me pain, From the awful word "insistent" Did not utterly refrain; Once it promised to refresh us, Seemed to be alert enough; Now I loathe it, laboured, precious— Merely verbal fluff. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various

... nothing for Rodney to do, but to sit down beside Sylvie, with three hours before him, which he had earned by four months among the wheels and cranks and wool-fluff. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... mantelpiece (which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish; and when he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a dusty fluff together over his eyes; and when he now turned round and lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his ears. This give him a wild appearance, similar to a ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... came to its meetings armed with musket and cutlass. Their tribunal was, of course, that of Judge Lynch. They arrested certain of the most unbearable offenders, tarred and feathered them, and drummed them out of the township. When feathers were lacking for the decoration, the white fluff of the native bullrush made a handy substitute. In the absence of a gaol, the Vigilants were known to keep a culprit in duress by shutting him up for the night in a sea-chest, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... out a sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... country—from the farms up Kinder or Edale way. Well, I don't know so much about your ways as I do about mills; but I know some, and I can guess some. You are not shut up all day with the roar of the machines in your ears, and the cotton-fluff choking your lungs. You have to live harder, perhaps. You've less chances of getting on in the world; but I declare to you, if you're bad and godless—as some of you are—I think there's a precious sight less excuse for you than there ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in the hammock; and on and on I droned and droned through the rhythmic stuff— But with always a half of my vision gone Over the top of the page—enough To caressingly gaze at you, swathed in the fluff Of your hair and your ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... temporizing thing, mean heart. Down-drawn, thou pick'st up straws and wretched stuff, Stooping as if the world's floor were the chart Of the long way thy lazy feet must tread. Thou dreamest of the crown hung o'er thy head— But that is safe—thou gatherest hairs and fluff! ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald

... finished for your occupancy, the disintegrating forces will have made a raid upon the material of which it is constructed. Take notice of the signs of decomposition going on in everything around you—the accumulation of fluff in your rooms, in the innermost of your garments, along the seams. So also do the rocks and mountains yield themselves to dust, and so does all the planet reverberate with the resistless onward march of the law of progress, ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... shepherd within it, had the dignity and beauty of some monumental tomb and carved effigy in old Greyfriars kirkyard. Only less strange was the contrast between the marks of poverty and toil on the dead man and the dainty grace of the little fluff of a dog that ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... Burke made to her. She was from Rhode Island and visiting May Strudwick, who told her for mercy's sake not to pay any attention to speeches of that sort and to hold on to the Rhode-Islander, for Mr. Burke said the same fluff to all the girls who came to Twickenham, and as long as it was just eyebrows and things of that kind no harm was done. But she couldn't understand and went home sooner than she expected. I understand. It's lots of fun—the different ways of ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher

... that time very popular, and called "Lilly Dale." Aunt Corinne faced about and saw a tiny creature, waxen-faced and with small white hands, and feet in bits of slippers, standing in a dirty spangled dress which was made to fluff out from her and give her an airy look. Her long brown curls hung about her shoulders. But her black eyes were surrounded with brownish rings which gave her a look of singing in her sleep, or in a half-conscious state. She was a delicate ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... tote a powder-puff. I did not know whether Aunt Caroline permitted it. Rub it on your nose," I advised, passing the bit of fluff to her. ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... You make verses of such a kind, that one can adapt what one will to your iambics: a little bit of fluff, a little bottle, a little bag. I ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... ringlet; fimbriae, pili, cilia, villi; lovelock; beaucatcher^; curl paper; goatee; papillote, scalp lock. plumage, plumosity^; plume, panache, crest; feather, tuft, fringe, toupee. wool, velvet, plush, nap, pile, floss, fur, down; byssus^, moss, bur; fluff. knot (convolution) 248. V. be rough &c adj.; go against the grain. render-rough &c adj.; roughen, ruffle, crisp, crumple, corrugate, set on edge, stroke the wrong way, rumple. Adj. rough, uneven, scabrous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... had to bare his Soul to the Head of the Firm. This revered Fluff should have been known as ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... Nature has not been as bountiful to Marcia in the matter of charms as to the others; she has stinted here and there, and it shows clearly as she grows older. But as she gives her head an airy toss and shakes the Skye fluff out of her eyes, he smiles. It would be an immense joke to marry Marcia Grandon; an immense mortification as well! To be Floyd Grandon's brother-in-law, to have the entree of the great house, to come very near Violet ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... minute he had to converse with his host, Lord Channelcliffe, and almost the first thing that friend said to him was: 'Who is that pretty woman in the black dress with the white fluff about it and the ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... in spite of her load, to catch a nice juicy worm now and then and had one left for the babies when she reached them. Those cunning little fluff-balls were so glad to see their mother. For the first ...
— The Little Red Hen - An Old English Folk Tale • Florence White Williams

... She struggled. but not wildly, for a few seconds and then remained passive with bright eyes glinting in the gloom. She was a dusky little creature, the primaries, the back of the head, neck, the shoulders, and tail being black, but when the wings were extended the grey fluff of the base of the tail was conspicuous. After a few minutes I put her back on the nest, and she clung, to it having no shyness or fear. I noticed that the beak was very short, the gape very large, the legs dwarfed, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... idle," said the Old Owl, and she gave herself such a shake as she said it, that the fluff went flying through the shed, and Tommy nearly tumbled off the beam in ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... sky made the temperature quite endurable. The country passed on our drive was unusually fine, with its groves of palms and plantains; its tall cottonwood-trees by the road-side, the ripe pods on the bare branches bursting and showing the soft, white fluff within; its giant mango-trees with bonfires built beneath them, as a quick method of ripening the fruit for market. Then there were acres of corn and fields of rice ready for harvesting, proving conclusively, as some one suggested, that the natives of Cebu could ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... letters, but promising to be back again ere long. We had a small mishap ere he went, for as we were talking of his journey my brother Hosea must needs start playing with my father's powder-flask, which in some way went off with a sudden fluff, spattering the walls with fragments of metal. So unexpected and loud was the explosion, that both my father and I sprang to our feet; but Saxon, whose back was turned to my brother, sat four-square ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... meet her. His eager, nimble fingers unfastened the blue frock. He slipped the next costume over her head without mussing a single beloved blonde hair. The second costume was a tight-fitting silver bodice with a fluff of green skirt underneath. Freddy had it fastened up in a twinkling. Florette ran out again and pulled ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... have been pretty hard," said my mother, "not to have shone a—little! To brood a baby forest in one's arms—if only for a single day—? Think of the experience!" Even at the very thought of it she began to shine all over again! "Funny little fluff o' green," she laughed, "no fatter than a fern!" Her voice went suddenly all wabbly like a preacher's. "But, oh, the glory of it!" she said. "The potential majesty! Great sweeping branches—! Nests for birds, shade for lovers, masts for ships to plow the great world's waters—timbers perhaps ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... Gallito's harsh face. Brook trout, freshly caught that afternoon from the rushing mountain stream not far away from the cabin, and smoking hot from the frying pan; an omelette, golden brown and buttercup yellow, of a fluff, a fragrance, with savories hidden beneath its surface, a conserve of fruits, luscious, amber and subtly biting, the coffee of dreams and a bottle of ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... strong light from the window threw her head into shadow; only the slight fluff of her hair glistened in the light. This made an aureole which framed the ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... ones are very good; none moves, none seeks a quarrel with his neighbours. Clinging together, they form a continuous drapery, a shaggy ulster under which the mother becomes unrecognizable. Is it an animal, a fluff of wool, a cluster of small seeds fastened to one another? 'Tis impossible to ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... red breast, And your blue back like a feathered sky, You have to go down south Before biting winter comes And my flower-beds are covered with fluff out of the clouds. Before you go, Sing me one more song Of tree-tops down south, Of darkies singing their babies to sleep, Of sand and glittering stones Where rivers pass; ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling

... thought—while the Senator exerted himself in the way of cheerful conversation, but it was very discouraging. Even when we dined at the fashionable open air restaurant in the Cascine, with no less a person than Ouida, in a fluff of grey hair and black lace, at the next table, and the most distinguished gambler of the Italian aristocracy presenting a narrow back to us from the other side, he permitted poppa to compare the quality ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... paper known as "German lined"—a highly absorbent, closely woven paper, having an even surface and no loose "fluff" to adhere to the specimens—is the most useful for ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... Aadheim, making for the quay, and now I felt both my hunger and a dropping weariness. I had no thought of entering any house, but as I passed by one open porte-cochere, something, I know not what, made me turn sharply in, for my mind had become as fluff on the winds, not working of its own action, but the sport of impulses that seemed external. I went across the yard, and ascended a wooden spiral stair by a twilight which just enabled me to pick my way among five or six vague forms fallen there. In that confined place fantastic qualms ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... one luminous ghost: and buttercup, daisy, snowdrop, primrose gathered Margaret, vagrant, flighty, light to the winds that wafted her as fluff, and tossed them suddenly aloft, and back they came to be tangled in her bare hair; and now she was a tipsy ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... stated. He was covered with fluff and looked like a tortoise popping forth for a bit ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... over those poodles. Each one had a high chair at the table, and a plate, and they always sat in these chairs and had meals with her, and the servants all called them Master Bijou, and Master Tot, and Miss Tiny, and Miss Fluff. One day they tried to make me sit in a chair, and I got cross and bit Mrs. Tibbett, and she beat me cruelly, and her servants stoned me away from ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... He would fluff out the really beautiful cascade of smooth and highly electric hair, his brown hands, so strangely light pink of palm, full of pride ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... salt. Now add slowly one-half cup of well-washed, unpolished rice. Cover and cook until the rice is tender and the water absorbed. Remove the lid and then cover the rice closely with a clean napkin and cook for five minutes. This will fluff each grain ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... I am about to give of preparing breast of mutton was told me by a Welsh lady of rank, at whose table I ate it (it appeared as a side dish), and who said, half laughingly, "Will you take some 'fluff'? We are very fond of it, but breast of mutton is such a despised dish I never expect any one else to like it." I took it, on my principle of trying everything, and did find it very good. This lady told me that, having of course a good ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... the wolf bore Henry even farther back than the voice of the owl, and his preternaturally acute senses took on an edge which the modern man never knows in his civilized state. He heard the fluff of the owl's feathers as it moved and the panting of the wolves in the valley below. Then he saw the leader walk from the low mound and take a slow and deliberate course along the slope, with the others following ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and shoulders in place of a jacket and hat. A colored cotton apron covers her skirt below the waist, and the short skirt displays stout stockings similar to Sarah's. She wears clogs, and the clothes—except the shawl—are covered with ends of cotton and cotton-wool fluff. Even her hair has not escaped. A pair of scissors hangs by a cord from ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... your restrained love for color, and your exceptional sense of balance into the whole establishment. It is a man's house—things are made for use; the chairs will stand weight; the couches are not fluff; one can lean with safety on the tables. But everywhere the eye is satisfied. My bed is beautiful, French I fancy, yet it is comfort itself. The lamp beside my bed is a dull bit of bronze which does not ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... brow, one of the dogs makes his appearance, and, trotting slowly back with panting flanks and lolling tongue, throws himself on his side exhausted. His mouth is now carefully examined, and two fingers being inserted, scoop round the fauces. The test is successful; there are traces of blood and fluff. "Bravo! Rattler! Show him—good dog. Show him!" Rattler rises with an effort, and lazily strikes into the bush, to the right. We follow in Indian file, and at about half a mile distant we come upon the kangaroo lying dead, with the second dog, old "Ugly," stretched ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... this way," interposed Mrs. Jenkins, ages before poor Jenkins could gain breath to answer. "I was on my hands and knees, brushing the fluff off my drawing-room carpet this morning, when I heard something tearing up the stairs at the rate of a coach-and-six. Who should it be but young Mr. Yorke, on his way to Jenkins in bed, without saying so much as 'With your leave,' or 'By your leave.' A minute or two, and down he ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... last, and the tissue-paper blew up in a great fluff; and out of it rolled a beautiful long, soft, thick gray cloak of finest texture and silken lining, with a great puffy collar and cuffs of deep, soft ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... room too, but it was smothered in white lace. The mother had seated herself again by the cupboard, and was drawing thread from a vast web of lace. A clump of fluff and ravelled cotton was at her right hand, a heap of three-quarter-inch lace lay on her left, whilst in front of her was the mountain of lace web, piling the hearthrug. Threads of curly cotton, pulled out from between the lengths of lace, strewed over the fender and the fireplace. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... grass, chewing at its green blades, scarce dry of dew, and with its juicy sweetness tasting the full of bitterness. And the gray shade stalked out again, and stood there in the warmth of the August day, with its scent and murmur of full summer, while the pigeons cooed and dandelion fluff ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... said, cubhood is not a matter of size only. As I look down at this glossy coat of mine, it is hard to believe that it was ever a dirty yellow color, and all ridiculous wool and fluff, as young cubs' coats are. But I must have been fluffy, because I remember how my mother, after she had been licking me for any length of time, used to be obliged to stop and wipe the fur out of her mouth with the back of her paw. Every time my mother had to wipe her ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson

... and cup-shaped, having a diameter of about 31/4 inches by 21/4 inches in depth, lined inside with fine grass, the soft fluff from the willow when in seed, wool, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... the out-pouring soldiers, the tiny workers ran and bit and chewed away at whatever they could reach. Dozens of ants made their way up to the cotton, but found the utmost difficulty in clambering over the loose fluff. Now and then, however, a needle-like nip at the back of my neck, showed that some pioneer of these shock troops had broken through, when I was thankful that Attas could only bite and not sting as ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... long. He went toward the living room and as he went he flew out quietly at somebody who was not there: "Uprightness? Knowledge of business, as that Philistine of an inspector says? I know why you're forcing your way in and insinuating yourself in here, you fluff-picker! Pretend to be as innocent as you like, I"—he made the gesture that meant: "I am one who know life and the species that wears long hair and aprons!" With this he turned toward the door, but his movement was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... had fallen the day before, and now wherever the ground was not paved the grass shone green. The birch trees in the gardens looked as if they were strewn with green fluff, the wild cherry and the poplars unrolled their long, balmy buds, and in shops and dwelling-houses the double window-frames were being ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... mind, and cultivate your daughter's eye for dust, dirt and cobwebs. You will find, unless she is a phenomenal exception to the majority of young people, that she will not see when the soap-cup needs washing, or that there are finger-smears on the doors, and "fluff" in the corners. But with the blessed mother-gift of patience, point out to her, again and again, the seemingly small details, the "hall-marks" of housewifery, which, heeded, make the thrifty, neat housekeeper, and, when neglected, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... having an earthquake when she got up, and animals rolled off her in all directions. A poodle, two fox terriers, a toy Spitz, and a cat and kitten, had all been sleeping in the nooks her outline makes. They all barked in different keys, and between saying, "Down, Hector!" "Quiet, Fluff!" "Hush, hush, Fanny!" "Did um know it was a stranger?" etc., etc., she got in that she was glad to see me, and hoped you were better. When she stands up she is colossal! Her body dressed in the last fashion, and then the queerest face with no neck, and lemon-coloured hair parted ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn



Words linked to "Fluff" :   bloomer, mishandle, fail, foul-up, go wrong, fuckup, blunder, boo-boo, loosen, stuff, triviality, comb out, small beer, comb, disentangle, pratfall, trifle, blooper, boner, miscarry, trivia, material



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