cruff

Unknown. Compare scruff (“one with untidy appearance”), scurf (“skin disease; dandruff”). Compare also cruft, crufty (“of inferior quality”); gruff (“rough, unpolished”).

cruff (comparative more cruff, superlative most cruff)

1. (Caribbean) Crude, rough, uncouth, tough.
   • 1982, Louise Bennett-Coverley, “Tan-up Seat”, in Selected Poems:

     Dem gwan like ooman strong like man
     An cruff an rough an hard!

     They are going to like a woman strong like a man / And crude and rough and hard!

   • 1986, Roger Hewitt, quoting an anonymous black British informant, White Talk Black Talk: Inter-racial Friendship and Communication amongst Adolescents, page 108:

     but if he looks a bit cruff ... an’ he says, ‘Wa ’appen, son. Wa gwaan’, an’ all dem tings der, an’ you start to speak to him in English, then you just break into the Jamaican habit – patois

cruff (plural cruffs)

1. (Caribbean) A person who is uncouth, crude, or tough.
   • 1955, “Rough Rider”, Alerth Bedasse (lyrics), Everard Williams (music):

     Rufus was a Barbadian cruff
     Who got the news how Miss Ida rough.
     Rufus say, “Jamaica bwoi too light,
     So I am going to show them how to fight.”

2. (Caribbean, often derogatory) A lazy person; someone of little value.
   • 2023, Alex Wheatle, Sufferah: Memoir of a Brixton Reggae Head, page 85:

     “You still the living bumpkin from the land of Oz!”
     “And you’re still a cruff wid no gyal!”

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:cruff.