Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an excuse, a pretence.

1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 17: Say, I made all kinds of bluffs bout de room, like I was gettin busy wid doin tings.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 217: In polite society it is bad form to make a woman formulate a ‘bluff’ without giving her time to make a guess or two.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 74: The threat implied by the request of the conductor might have been a bluff to intimidate us.
1922		Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 15 Jan. 3/1: All he does is make bluff that he’s an artist. Don’t paint much, though.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 156: You take their bluff for the real thing.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Winter Feeding the Herd’ in Me And Gus (1977) 82: Every time he gets the lemon he tries to put up a bluff, that his crash is according to programme, but he can’t fool me about it.

2. deception.

1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 130: I run a bluff on ’em.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 330: Air-tights is can peaches, can tomatters, an’ sim’lar bluffs.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 246: Bluff. Bluster; a false impression.
1914		M. Glass Potash And Perlmutter 197: I don’t want to make no bluffs nor nothing, but believe me, the line of garments what we carry and the line of garments what H. Rifkin carried, there ain’t no comparison.
1950		R. Starnes And When She Was Bad 123: I had no way of telling how much Moon knew; he might just be running a bluff.

3. (US) an impostor, a deceiver, one who bluffs.

1899		Ade Fables in Sl. (1902) 115: Once there was a Bluff whose Long Suit was Glittering Generalities.
1903		Ade People You Know 71: He was a sad Bluff and he knew it.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 30: She’s a bluff.
1916		Day Book (Chicago) 29 July 9/1: ‘Well, you big bluff,’ answered one who was tired of listening.
1930		M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 163: ‘Fiaschetti,’ I laughed, ‘the big bluff. He’s a dirty fake. He couldn’t get you’.
1941		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 26 Apr. 9/7: You’re still nothing but a bluff and square.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 173: The hustlers, the thumpers, the loudmouth bluffs.

4. attrib. use of sense 3.

1910

‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Dramatic Forecast’ Sporting Times 31 Dec. 2/2: [I] hoped someone would put the bluff fool in a cage / Ere his blitherings caused me to shunt.