stuffing
/ˈstʌfɪŋ
/noun [mass noun]
1A mixture used to stuff poultry or meat before cooking: sage and onion stuffing [count noun]: packet stuffings are quick to use...
- In 17th and 18th-century English recipes, mixtures for stuffings and forcemeats of many types are recorded.
- They are filled to the brim with three stuffings: meat (pork and beef with onion, garlic); cheese and potato; sauerkraut and wild mushroom.
- On a hard roll, layer turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing with a little mayonnaise.
Synonyms
filling, forcemeat, farce, salpicon;
North American dressing
2Padding used to stuff cushions, furniture, or soft toys: the stuffing is coming out of the armchair...
- Flax mills were built on the north-west side of the Takaka Hill, producing fibre used for rope, sacks, upholstery stuffing and linen.
- The stuffing of the tooled-leather cushion rustled as I settled into it.
- Fur and the stuffing of the cushion rustled as he sat and settled himself.
Synonyms
padding, wadding, lining, filling, quilting, cushioning, upholstery, packing, filler;
down, duck down, flock, kapok
3 [count noun] informal A heavy defeat in sport.This was one of the most abject stuffings in the history of Scottish rugby, with Glasgow losing out on power, pace and skill, as well as almost every phase....
- So tomorrow, I'll spend two hours praying we give Telford a good stuffing, and that two of our most hated local rivals do us a favour by taking points off other teams in the dogfight.
- But since the football pitch has replaced the battlefield, our desire to see Germany get a good stuffing has not diminished.
Phrases
knock (or take) the stuffing out of