huff-snuff, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

huff-snuff n.

[his swaggering, threatening presence; Urquhart translates French Lifrelofres, synon. used for Germans or Swiss; the editor adds ‘Here it is a buffooning term for an impertinent philosopher’]

a bully, a braggart.

1582		Stanyhurst ‘Of A Craking Cvtter’ in Of Virgil his Æneis n.p.: A lofty Thrasonical huf snuffe.
1591		Greene Notable Discovery of Coosnage in Grosart (1881–3) X 42: The poor servingman, apprentice, farmer, or whatsoever he is, seeing such a terrible huffe snuffe, swearing with his dagger in his hand, is fearefull [...] of him.
1598		Florio Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Risentito, ... a huffe snuffe, one that will soone take pepper in the nose.
1611		R. Cotgrave Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Ferré, Mangeur de charrettes ferrées, a terrible huffsnuffe, scarre-crow, braggadochio.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk II 236: He dried up all the countries that were under it, burning a great part of the Heavens, which the Philosophers call via lactea, and the Huffsnuffs, St. James his way.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Pantagruelian Prognostications (1927) II 694: Swaggering huff-snuffs, bouncing bullies, braggadocios.
1750		Ozell Rabelais iv pref. xxiii: Freenooters, desperadoes, and bullying huff-snuffs.