muff1
/mʌf
/noun
1A tube made of fur or other warm material into which the hands are placed for warmth.Through Salt Lake City and Middle America womenswear is urban grunge: purple muffs, denim waistcoats, spearmint leather blousons and animals on mohair jumpers....
- When they got back they hung up their coats, hats and muffs and went to the dining room for luncheon.
- The traffic in eggs and the demand for breast feathers for ladies' muffs and headgear reduced the bird's numbers to a low ebb.
2 vulgar slang A woman’s genitals.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Dutch mof, Middle Dutch muffel, from medieval Latin muff(u)la, of unknown ultimate origin.
Rhymes
muff2
/mʌf/informal
verb [with object]
Handle (a situation, task, or opportunity) clumsily or badly: the administration muffed several of its biggest projects...
- If the Liberal Democrats do not make some handsome gains on Thursday, the party is going to have to ask itself whether that opportunity was muffed.
- The U.S. muffed that opportunity to nip this kind of behavior, so destructive of the global marketplace, in the bud.
- The Indian defence also looked off-colour and they were lucky not to concede goals as the Pakistani forwards muffed the chances that came their way.
Synonyms
mishandle, mismanage, mess up, make a mess of, bungle, botch;
miss, mishit, fumble
informal make a hash of, fluff, foul up, screw up, louse up, bitch up, blow, foozle
British informal make a muck of, make a pig's ear of, cock up, make a Horlicks of
North American informal flub, goof up, bobble
vulgar slang fuck up, bugger up, balls up, bollix up
noun
1A mistake or failure, especially a failure to catch or receive a ball cleanly in sport.‘The muff by Snodgrass was only one link in a chain of strange events (leading to the Red Sox victory),’ Lieb wrote....
- While the direction in both films means we get lots of crazy compositions and flawed framing, at least we don't have to sit through scratches, drop out, or editing muffs.
- As with most shows, bloopers abound in The West Wing, but the Gag Reel presented here is only about a minute of muffs: actors blowing lines and technical malfunctions of the set.
1.1 dated, chiefly British A clumsy or incompetent person, especially in relation to a sport or manual skill.
Origin
Early 19th century: of unknown origin.