fluff

From earlier floow (“woolly substance, down, nap, lint”), also spelt flough, flue, and flew, from West Flemish vluwe, of uncertain ultimate origin:

• Compare Old English flōh (“that which is flown off, fragment, piece”) - see flaw
• Possibly representing a blend of flue +‎ puff; compare Middle Dutch vloe, or perhaps onomatopoeic; compare dialectal English floose, flooze, fleeze (“particles of wool or cotton; fluff; loose threads or fibres”), Danish fnug (“down, fluff”), Swedish fnugg (“speck, flake”).
• Alternatively, West Flemish vluwe may derive from French velu (“hairy, furry”), from Latin villūtus (“having shaggy hair”), from villus (“shaggy hair, tuft of hair”).

For words of similar sound and meaning in other languages, compare Japanese フワフワ (fuwafuwa, “lightly, softly”), Hungarian puha (“soft, fluffy”), Polish puchaty (“soft, fluffy”), Romanian puf (“down, peachfuzz, soft hair of some animals, powderpuff”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /flʌf/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /flɐf/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /flʊf/
• Rhymes: -ʌf

fluff (countable and uncountable, plural fluffs)

1. Anything light, soft or fuzzy, especially fur, hair, feathers.
   • 1892, A Conan Doyle, “ The Right of the Beacons”, in The Great Shadow and Beyond the City, Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, ; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., →OCLC, page 5:

     hen I walk in my fields I can see, down Berwick way, the little fluffs of white smoke which tell me of this strange new hundred-legged beast, with coals for food and a thousand men in its belly, for ever crawling over the border.

2. Anything inconsequential or superficial.

   That article was basically a bunch of fluff. It didn't say anything substantive.

3. (informal) A lapse or mistake, especially a mistake in an actor's lines.

   Synonym: flub

4. (informal, childcare) A cloth diaper.
5. (New England) Marshmallow creme.

   That New England-style salami and fluff sandwich sure hit the spot!

6. (LGBTQ) A passive partner in a lesbian relationship.
7. (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, euphemistic) A fart. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
8. (fandom slang) Fan fiction, or part of a fan fiction, which is sweet and feel-good in tone, usually involving romance.
   • 2011, anonymous, quoted in Katherine Larsen & Lynn Zubernis, Fandom at the Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/producer Relationships, page 138:

     And when something triggers, I can close the window and go read fluff for hours until I calm down.

   • 2017, "Flourish Kink", quoted in Ashley J. Barner, The Case for Fanfiction: Exploring the Pleasures and Practices of a Maligned Craft, page 67:

     Fans prefer fluff to other types of fic. But angst (dramatic stories where characters have a wide range of emotions, including...angsty ones) comes in close second.

   • 2017, Carrie DiRisio, Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me, unnumbered page:

     Ah, fluff. My happy place. These fics are dedicated to feel-good feelings, which are the very best type of feelings.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:fluff.
9. (UK, roleplaying games) A form of roleplaying which is inconsequential and not related to the plot; often used in the context of (but not limited to) filling time.
10. (UK, slang, obsolete) Short change deliberately given by a railway clerk, to keep back money for himself.
    • 1900, The Railway Magazine, volume 7, page 560:

      "What?" cried the counter-man, indignantly. "Been a railwayman all these years, and don't know what fluff is? Why, 'pon me word, you deserve to get the sack!"

• (anything light, soft or fuzzy): fuzz, oose (Scotland), puff
• (anything inconsequential or superficial): BS, cruft, hype, all talk
• (a lapse): blooper, blunder, boo-boo, defect, error, fault, faux pas, gaffe, lapse, mistake, slip, stumble, thinko
• (passive in a lesbian relationship): ruffle
• (sweet or feel-good fanfiction): schmoop
• See also Thesaurus:error

• dust
• lint
• plumage

fluff (third-person singular simple present fluffs, present participle fluffing, simple past and past participle fluffed)

1. (transitive) To make something fluffy.

   The cat fluffed its tail.

2. (intransitive) To become fluffy, puff up.
3. (intransitive) To move lightly like fluff.
   • 1872, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast-Table:

     She gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin.

4. (informal, transitive, intransitive, of an actor or announcer) To make a mistake in one's lines.

   Synonym: flub

5. (informal, transitive) To do incorrectly, for example mishit, miskick, miscue etc.

   Synonym: flub

   • 2012 June 19, Phil McNulty, “England 1-0 Ukraine”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Either side of Rooney's fluffed chance, it was a tale of Ukrainian domination as they attacked England down both flanks and showed the greater fluidity of the teams.

6. (intransitive, Australia, euphemistic) To break wind, to fart.
7. (transitive, slang) To arouse (a male pornographic actor) before filming.
   • 2008, Blue Blake, Out of the Blue: Confessions of an Unlikely Porn Star, page 187:

     To get Lance Bronson hard, Chi Chi, in desperation, called Sharon Kane to come and fluff him on the set. People were always asking me how they could get a job as a fluffer.

8. (transitive, slang, by extension) To bring to a state of excitement.
   • 2016, Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother:

     The warmup guy — as I now know is common for live audiences in taped television performances — kept fluffing the crowd like they were preschoolers.
     “Now what are you going to do when we introduce the first comedian?”
     Wild cheers.
     “C'mon, that's not good enough! Let's try it again! What are you going to do???”

9. (UK, slang, obsolete) To deliberately shortchange (a railway customer) and keep the money for oneself.
   • 1900, The Railway Magazine, volume 7, page 559:

     A genial counter-man told Mr. Manners that, if he played artful, he might even now obtain the position of outside porter; you got no pay there, but you could gain a moderate competency by fluffing.

• (railways: short change): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
• (excite): Tony Thorne (2014) “fluff”, in Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, 4th edition, London,  : Bloomsbury

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “fluff”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

fluff c or n

1. fluffy (and absorbent) stuff in a baby's diaper

• fluffmassa

• fluffa
• fluffig

• fluff in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• fluff in Svensk ordbok (SO)