Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an incompetent, foolish person.

1842		Lord Houghton Letter in Reid Life (1891) I 284: I do not think him the mere duffer that most people make him out. But he seems to have no faculty for his position.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 269: His false petitions were highly esteemed, and he enjoyed the reputation of being a first-rate fist at ‘screeving a fakement,’ though, owing to his forged signatures having been too often detected, he was declared to be ‘a duffer at coopering a monekur’.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 68: The little duffer got so jolly wild’.
1867		Sportsman 24 jan. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Stephens has turned out, in vulgar parlance, ‘a rank duffer’.
1866		Night Side of N.Y. 82: The trouble had arisen out of the application to him [...] on the morning of the fight, of the epithet ‘duffer’.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 403: When that duffer dropped that hundred-pounder on my foot I see my chance.
1873		Wkly Times (Melbourne) 2 Aug. 9/5: Their bounce wouldn’t be a bit less shabby than the bounce of a few of these broken-down Melbourne duffers in London, who, mind you, were altogether ‘without honour in their own country.’.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter I 13: Ensign Shiekington Duffer, of Her Majesty's 191st Regiment of Foot, was a remarkably fine fellow in his own estimation, the hope of his family.
1881		‘’Arry on Woman Rights’ Punch 2 Apr. 156/1: The duffers down there / Who voted ’em right — ten to one! — made it ’ardish to keep on one’s ’air.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 377: Blessed if I ever saw such a lot of duffers in my life.
1890		Sporting Times 4 Jan. 6: The man that staked a large sum that at ten o’clock the next morning the largest number of cats would be found on the side of the street facing South was a sharper, and the poor fellow taken in was a duffer indeed, and might have known that cats liked the sunshine.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 22 Feb. 3/4: Kilrain, the big duffer who was bolstered as champion of the world by the Yankees [...] has been badly whipped in six rounds.
1893		S. Crane Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (1896) 60: I wonder if I’ve been played for a duffer.
1906		W. Gippsland Gaz. (Vic.) 30 Jan. 3/4: He got called ‘The Duffer,’ in the first place because he was rather a duffer.
1908		K. Grahame Wind in the Willows (1995) 130: You’ve been a bit of a duffer this time, Ratty!
1911		Truth (Brisbane) 15 Jan. 9/5: The deluded duffers who get smitten are not anxious to advertise the fact.
1919		Marvel 3 Mar. 7: Can’t you stick to the subject, you duffer?
1926		M. Forrest Hibiscus Heart 243: What a forgetful old duffer I am.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 639: Seeing the poor old duffer was like seeing death.
1940		M. de la Roche Whiteoak Heritage (1949) 72: It’s out, you little duffer! I pulled it.
1957		‘Ed Lacy’ Lead With Your Left (1958) 76: They had to put a watchman in. An old duffer in the neighborhood.
1967		K. Amis letter 30 Nov. in Leader (2000) 56: It’s pretty obvious that they just want some duffer.
1970		‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 30: The two male duffers didn’t seem strong enough to wrestle a mop, let alone pull a file drawer open.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 102: Just Plain Bill denied they were going to harm the old duffers.
1990		S. Geason Shaved Fish 152: He’d bore the duffers at the golf club to death.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 223: The old duffer who runs the place watches as a take the stuff out the sack.
2004		T. Winton ‘Defender’ Turning (2005) 310: I’m such a duffer.
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 184: [T]he old duffers down the Dutch pub.
2019		P. Temple ‘High Art’ in The Red Hand 44: ‘What beats me is how these Pel duffers would know he was missing’.
2020		T. Pluck ‘Hula Hula Boys’ in What Pluckery Is This? (28 Jan 2024) 🌐 [A] wrinkled old duffer grinning beneath a pair of enormous sunglasses.

2. (Aus.) an unproductive mine or goldfield.

1858		Bendigo Advertiser (Vic.) 24 Mar. 3/2: [A] lady the other day [asked] me [...] the true meaning of that nasty word of German origin, which [...] denotes anything worthless [...] To apply the disgusting word in question to a bad claim or hole, is an outrage on our [...] language [...] The word ‘duffer,’ which is used to express the same thing, is anything but elegant, but it is far superior.
1861		T. McCombie Aus. Sketches 193: It was a terrible duffer anyhow, every ounce of gold got from it cost £20 I’ll swear.
1871		C. Money Knocking About in N.Z. 99: Our claim proved a ‘duffer’.
1889		H. Lawson ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 58: He sunk a duffer on the Flat.
1890		P. Melon ‘Jack & Jim’ Sporting Times 4 Jan. 3: No more grafting now for nothing, no more putting duffers down.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 1/5: A Westralian mine (a duffer so far by the way) has been christened the I.O.U.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Feb. 13/4: He gave to his own affairs just enough time to get hold of about two dozen claims, which were all duffers.
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘Hopeful Hawkins’ Backblock Ballads 30: The confounded mine’s a duffer; for that simple-minded buffer / He had salted it.
1950		(con. 1936–46) K.S. Prichard Winged Seeds (1984) 174: Couple of chaps put down a shaft on the ridge, reckoned they’d struck a duffer.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

3. a failure.

1863		C. Reade Hard Cash I 178: She won’t sing two running: they have to stick a duffer in between.
1876		M.E. Braddon Dead Men’s Shoes III 237: Not that the pictures are any good for much – reg’lar Wardour Street duffers supplied by the upholsterer, old Kabriole.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 17/3: [of a horse] For example, suppose a 200 sov. prize is put up at Dubbo, the prudent owner of a crack will knock him out of condition, and then start him for three or four paltry prizes about the district, for each of which he will run a most successful last, and on this running being made known to a strange handicapper, he will naturally enough vote the horse a duffer, and let him into a fat handicap with something like a ‘feather’.
1902		C. Poole ‘attle Flat’ in Bulletin Reciter 1880–1901 79: He always sunk a duffer when he tried to talk — but, still, / He ’d stoush a blooming bullock.
1906		Truth (Brisbane) 22 Apr. 6/3: ‘Oh, God! old girl I’ve had a rotter of a day, never backed a bally winner. Put my last red on that beast, the Trustee [...] the d— brute ran a regular duffer’.
1908		Sporting Times 21 Mar. 1/4: He was about the greatest duffer that ever handled a niblick, and, having got his ball badly bunkered, do what he would he couldn’t get it out again.