eff v.
1. (also f) a euph. for fuck v.; thus eff off, euph. for fuck off v. (1)
![]() | New Writing 73: ‘Bunch o’ toerags,’ said the tall girl....‘Ah, eff ’em,’ said Walter. | ‘Street Corner’|
![]() | Fowlers End (2001) 29: I’ll burn your effing show down to the effing ground; eff me if I don’t you old effer. | |
![]() | Night Song (1962) 183: Eff you, man. | |
![]() | Walk in the Night (1968) 73: ‘Ah effit,’ Willieboy sneered. ‘You bare-arsed bastard. You got nothing.’. | |
![]() | Threefold Cord 24: I’ll eff you up, pally. | |
![]() | (con. WWII) Long White Night 16: Well, I’ll be effed! | |
![]() | Down Among the Meths Men 50: Eff them, eff the bleedin’ soddin’ lot. | |
![]() | Mama Black Widow 110: Ah don want yu effing wif me agin. | |
![]() | Glass Canoe (1982) 24: ‘Behave,’ he’d growl at some eager swearer, who was f’ing this and that in a loud voice. | |
![]() | Spike Island (1981) 204: He says, ‘Are you from the police?’ ‘Well done!’ I said — and they effed off. | |
![]() | (con. 1920s) Emerald Square 42: Another Liberties character was Damn the Weather, who had been effing the Irish climate for years. | |
![]() | Do or Die (1992) 81: Eff yo’ set and eff yo’ dead homeboys. | |
![]() | On the Ledge 29: What kind of communication is . . . is ‘f’ing’ this and ‘f’ing that – ‘f’ this and ‘f’ that? | |
![]() | Tales from a City Farmyard 164: He ‘effed’ my Dad from a height. | |
![]() | 🎵 God ‘F’ the government and its fuckin capital punishment. | ‘Capital Punishment’|
![]() | Hell on Hoe Street 38: Piss on them all [...] Damn them, bloody them, blast them, eff them! | |
![]() | Jake’s Long Shadow 36: He can go eff himself. | |
![]() | Observer 10 Mar. 12: I think it’s the way you talk to them that sometimes creates a problem. Don’t start effing off. | |
![]() | Guardian G2 20 Feb. 6: He admits that it might be a bit of a challenge after effing it up for six years. | |
![]() | in Getting Played 51: When girls didn't respond to young men's advances, Antwoin said, ‘they be like, “F [fuck] you, B [bitch]”’. | |
![]() | Running the Books 244: I can not, and will not, be effed with. | |
![]() | IOL News (S. Afr.) 5 Sept. 🌐 F him and his six wives. | |
![]() | 🎵 She don’t f with punks cause they seem to avoid her / Shes thuggish she only f’s with thugs. | ‘Fire in the Booth’|
![]() | Crongton Knights 261: ‘If he lives he’s gonna wanted some effed-up revenge’. | |
![]() | Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘I told him to go “F” himself’. | |
![]() | 🌐 Grendel has absolutely effed up the gaff, so now our poet takes some time to shit on the ways of the heathens. | Boyo-wulf at https://boyowulf.home.blog 13 May
2. to engage in homosexual intercourse.
![]() | (ref. to 1910s) in Between the Acts 15: In my boyhood days [...] we used to call it shagging one another, though. And if it was plain speaking it was effing one another you see. |
In phrases
to swear intensely; thus effing and blinding, using obscenities.
![]() | Mint (1955) 95: A native shyness shuts me out from their freemasonry of fucking and blinding. | |
![]() | Reported Safe Arrival 31: They’d eff and blind till yer ear-’oles started ter frizzle. | |
![]() | (con. 1936) Chicken Soup with Barley I i: He started effing and blinding and threw books on the floor. | |
![]() | Saved Scene xi: ‘Effin an’ blindin’ [...] Swore at me! | |
![]() | (con. WWII) Soldier Erect 71: Chaps who rolled in late would [...] fuck and blind if they had missed him [i.e. the tea-seller]. | |
![]() | All Bull 1258: As a soldier I had been a fearful prig and curbed my tongue from obscenity; the moment I left I could not stop effing and blinding. | |
![]() | Honourable Schoolboy 254: F-ing and blinding like I don’t know what. | |
![]() | Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 15: Across the road a breakdown gang from the Scots Borderers fucked and blinded over the removal of the Major’s wrecked car. | |
![]() | Educating Rita I i: It’s the aristocracy that swears more than anyone, isn’t it? They’re effin’ and blindin’ all day long. | |
![]() | (con. 1930s) Emerald Square 183: Even though we effed and blinded them and called them Cromwell’s bastards and ‘prods’. | |
![]() | Guardian G2 10 Jan. 5: In the pre-watershed Queen Vic, no East-Ender effs or blinds. | |
![]() | Observer New Review 3 Oct. 25/4: The sort of modern foodie we associate with frantic TV kitchens full of effing and blinding. | |
![]() | Independent 2 June 24/4: [Who] would legislate gainst Aussies chucking a few effs and blinds around. |
In exclamations
euph. for fuck off! excl.
![]() | Ragman’s Daughter 161: You’ve come to the wrong place. Why don’t you eff off to France and look for ’im there? | |
![]() | Start in Life (1979) 313: He told me to eff-off, and shambled on. | |
![]() | Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 27: Eff off you stupid come-pot. | |
![]() | Indep. 6 Sept. 20: How could anyone tell such an adorable pair to eff off. | |
![]() | Indep. Rev. 16 May 7: They yell at the security men to eff off. |