Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a generally derisive name for anyone seen as boorish, unsophisticated or rude.

[c.1440		Promptuarium Parvulorum 77/1: Choffe or chuffe, rusticus].
1542		Udall (trans.) Erasmus’ Apophthegms (1564) Bk II 123: Therewithall a great gorrebealyed chuff.
1566		T. Drant (trans.) ‘The seconde Satyre’ Horace his Satyres Bk I Avii: The answer say the neuer thriftes, was giuen in the Cue, Well fare his hearte: the chuffes the same with deepe disprayse pursue.
1589		W. Warner Albion’s England Bk 5 xxvi 114: Now the lustfull Chuffe was come to single out his game.
1590		Sidney Arcadia II (1912) 312: That saw a butcher, a butcherlie chuffe indeed [...] calling Zelmane all the vile names of butcherly eloquence.
1599		Jonson Every Man Out of his Humour Dramatis Personae: Sordido, a wretched hob-nailed chuff.
1607		Rowlands Humours Ordinarie F1: His journey is in Paules [...] Some other time stumbling on wealthy Chuffes, Worth gulling, then he swaggers all in huffes.
1618		Owles almanacke 42: Many a Chuffe will steale a nap by the fire side.
1626		Jonson Staple of News IV i: It was spitefully done of the poet, to make the chuff take him off in his height, when he was going to do all his brave deeds.
1630		B. Goodall The tryall of trauell n.p.: The Clownish rusticke short another way / Chuff as idoll wanting what to say / Blurts forth in a presumption homebred shame.
1653		T. Urquhart Gargantua & Pantagruel [trans.] 165: [He] sank up to the knee in the paunch of a great fat chuffe, who lay there upon his back drowned, and could not get it out.
1662		R. L’Estrange A Memento 142: It is scarce to be Imagined, The Interest of This Chuff in a Popular Scuffle; especially, if he has gotten his Estate by a Rustical, and Plodding Industry.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 100: Swift Jemmy, or the Croyden Chuff.
1687		J. Cleveland Works 469: {T]here appears a Farmer of the Mannor of Kingsbury [...] This Chuff demands one hundred Marks Damages for the Losses he had sustained in his Absence, and threatens to burn the [...] Mannor-house of Kingsbury.
1695		A. Galland The remarkable sayings, apothegms and maxims of the Eastern nations 28: A Son was ask’d, Whether he wished the Death of his Father, that he might have his Estate? he answer’d, No, but I could wish some-body would kill the old Chuff.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 336: Blusterer, Saucebox, Smell-feast, Weasel, / Swasher, Swaggerer, Princock, Chuff.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 209: The principal nature of the ‘Surly Club’ appeared to lie in the members all being surly, ill-tempered, wrangling chuffs.
1912		Hopsville Kentuckian (KY) 30 Nov. 3/2: Rigged out in goggles and motoring stuff, / He looked like a regular everyday ‘chuff’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 374: Thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in the peasestraw thou losel, thou chitterling.

2. a miser.

1566		W. Adlington (trans) Golden Asse 37: [W]e learned where a riche chuffe called Chryseros did dwell, who for feare of offices in ye publique weal, dissimuled his estate, and liued sole and solitary in a small cote [...] and went dayly in ragged & torne apparell.
1567–70		G. Turbervile ‘A Promise’ in Chalmers Eng. Poets (1810) II 618/2: The Chuffes for greedie gaine / and lukers loone expende / Their New yeares gifts upon their Lords / as erie yeare hath ende.
c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 III iii: Hang ye, ye gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs.
1607		Dekker & Webster Northward Hoe V i: He’s not one of your fat city chuffs.
1630		T. Randolph Muses’ Looking Glass IV iv: The chuff’s crowns Imprison’d in his trusty chest methinks.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 204: The father is held a close chuff, though a fanciful.
1822		R. Nares Gloss. (1888) I 162: chuff. A term of reproach, usually applied to avaricious old citizens; of uncertain derivation.
1839		Northern Liberator (Tyne & Wear) 28 Sept. 4/4: The best joke of all [...] is the Prayer of these Cornish chuffs to the people — ‘For God’s sake, not to take any money out of the Savings’ Bank’.