fluff n.1
1. the pubic hair of either gender.
DSUE (1984) 410/2: C.19–20. | ||
Queens’ Vernacular. | ||
Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 187: To [...] return to the quim whiskers, common terms include [...] the derisive (fur, fluff). |
2. (also fluffery) rubbish, nonsense, something superficial.
‘Ax My Eye’ in New Cockalorum Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) II 24: Stow your gab and guffery, / To every fakement I am fly, / I never takes no fluffery. | ||
‘Ax My Eye’ Dublin Comic Songster 100: [as 1836]. | ||
Pall Mall Gaz. 7 Oct. 1/2: [headline] From Fluff to Facts. | ||
Lone Hand May 80: You’ll be amazed to find what drivel the Judge can talk, and listen to. Absolutely silly drivel. He loves ‘fluff’. | ||
Babbitt (1974) 99: I’d never go out and buy Prince Albert Tobacco after reading it, because it doesn’t tell me anything about the stuff. It’s just a bunch of fluff. | ||
They Dug a Hole 8: Fluff to yourself, boy! We’re going on active tack. | ||
Queens’ Vernacular 83: fluff [...] elaborate mannerisms ‘I can’t stand that big dyke; she’s always makin’ with that butch fluff like openin’ doors for me an’ lightin’ my cigarillos’. | ||
Get Shorty [film script] It’s nothing. It’s fluff. Nothing you’d be interested in. | ||
I, Fatty 154: The Round-Up. A nice enough bit of fluff. | ||
Eve. Standard 17 Feb. 51/4: Since when is an awards night the place to downplay showbiz fluff? |
3. a young, attractive, but empty-headed woman; occas. man; esp. in phr. bit of fluff ; also attrib.
Shorty McCabe 140: When in sails a fluff delegation. There was a fat old one, that looked as though she might be mother [and] a slim baby-eyed one, that any piker would have played for sister. | ||
Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xvii: Them Senators that put the kibosh on that racetrack bill can consider themselves as personal friends of every chorus Fluff that ever scanned a dope sheet. | ||
Hand-made Fables 110: The Fluff who wants a Partner for Bridge. | ||
Prison Nurse (1964) 29: It ain’t often we get a nifty piece of fluff like that around. | ||
High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 395: I hate to see a guy like you making a sap of himself over a little fluff like that. | ||
Coll. Stories (1990) 113: He had to compromise on a chorus fluff named Lulu. | ‘Make with the Shape’ in||
Sexus (1969) 134: [of men] Does it prove that they wouldn’t have been better than the old fluffs whom we’ve got sitting on the bench now? | ||
Walk on the Wild Side 258: One of my fluffs heard a radio broadcast ’n sent me a lawyer. | ||
5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | ||
Daddy Cool (1997) 101: He was gettin’ ready to ball the little fluff right in the front seat on Main Street. | ||
Silence of the Lambs (1991) 170: Jack Crawford and his fluff. They’ll get together openly after his wife dies. | ||
(con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 51: Those movie star guys are just fluff. [...] Cute, but fluff. |
4. (US, also fluffbrain) a foolish person.
It’s Up to You 101: He’s one of those fluffs who whistle for the police when they lose eighty cents. | ||
Ade’s Fables 143: Next morning he had to bare his Soul to the Head of the Firm. This revered Fluff should have been known as Mr. Yes-But. | ‘The New Fable of What Transpires’ in||
Professor How Could You! 265: We couldn’t turn the poor old fluff (sap) loose. | ||
CUSS 119: Fluff brain A person who always fools around. | et al.
5. anything – writing, music – considered lightweight.
High Window 88: The man was [...] sneering at me over the New Republic. ‘You ought to lay off that fluff and get your teeth into something solid, like a pulp magazine,’ I told him, just to be friendly. | ||
Lucky You 119: It was the only contest that pretended fluff was worthwhile journalism. | ||
Indep. Rev. 12 May 14: McCrae’s Seventies piece of disco fluff ‘You Can Have It All’. | ||
(con. 1962) Enchanters 119: I fed him fluff on Monroe’s bedroom sloth. |
6. the passive, ‘feminine’ partner in a lesbian couple.
Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 24: Glossary of Homosexual Terms [...] fluff (or femme: A female homosexual who is effeminate in her ways . | ||
Bounty of Texas (1990) 204: fluff, n. – the female who plays the female role in a lesbian relationship. | ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy||
Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 132: Fluff (though Martin Sherman’s recent play Bent makes a big point of using this term to describe male homosexuals in a manner less derogatory than queer). | ||
Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Fluff: Feminine lesbian. |
7. (gay) an effeminate male homosexual.
Queens’ Vernacular. | ||
Close Pursuit (1988) 134: I was going to go over to Fourteenth Street, look-see if our fist-fucker is back in business and kick some fluffs over on Christopher Street. | ||
Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 25: Says he’s going to be invincible – will split any fluff I look at down the middle when he’s finished his taekwon-do. | letter
8. (US black) the vagina.
Choirboys (1976) 100: Francis [...] aimed it not at Wolfgang but at Olga’s bulging fluff. | ||
Runnin’ Down Some Lines 152: Terms like fluff for vagina [...] suggest a woman’s soft or furlike parts. |
9. (US gay) the male genitals, esp. the anus .
Queens’ Vernacular 83: fluff [...] 5. (camp) reference to one’s own sex organs, especially the ass. |
10. (US drugs) cocaine.
Riptide Ultra-Glide 8: Coke, blow, flake, fluff, snow, marching dust, weasel powder, white death [etc]. |
In compounds
an insubstantial, superficial person.
Dict. of Invective (1991) 48: fluffhead. A person, usually a woman, not noted for vigorous intellect. | ||
Guardian Rev. 6 Nov. 4: Sarah Michelle Gellar is delightful as the privileged fluffhead. | ||
Guardian Rev. 19 Feb. 4: The girls are [...] the very picture of gormless, if putatively sexy, fluffheadery. |
In phrases
an attractive, but otherwise unexceptional woman, esp. a girlfriend; occas. a young man.
Hookey 44: Joy Street usually referred to her (or any other of her kind) as ‘a bit of fluff’. | ||
Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Aug. 4/8: Barmaids tender, barmaids tough / [...] / Were his ‘little bit of fluff’. | ||
Arthur’s 86: I s’pose [...] as you – don’t – neether of you – ’appen to know – to know – a bit of fluff – called – Kitty? | ||
Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 81: Doreen an’ me! My precious bit o’ fluff! | ‘Hitched’ in||
Brooklyn Murders (1933) 67: He had been expecting [...] to be confronted with a beauty of the picture post card type, some little bit of fluff from the musical comedy stage. | ||
AS III:2 131: He announces his opinion of the social and intellectual gifts of a fellow student in terms like: [...] ‘a powder-house fluff,’ ‘a bit of fluff,’ ‘a sheik,’ or ‘a sheba’. | ‘College Sl.’ in||
Seven Poor Men of Sydney 51: This young chap is sweet on a girl here, a nice little bit of fluff. | ||
Jacaranda in the Night (1981) I 383: Next time you feel you would like a bit of fluff, you just go about it in the same way, and you’ll click. | ||
Groucho Letters (1967) 99: A bit of fluff, accoutered with standard high heels, silk stockings. | letter in||
Rooted III i: We finally had a showdown when she caught me in flaggers with a bit of fluff. | ||
Stand (1990) 472: That silly bit of fluff. | ||
(con. 1930s–50s) Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 19: Mots, birds, bits of fluff, lovely Janes. | ||
Dict. of Invective (1991) 150: fluff. A young woman, lightly considered; often a bit (or piece) of fluff. | ||
Vinnie Got Blown Away 122: You his new bit of fluff miss? | ||
(con. late 1940s) Sixteen Shillings And Tuppence Ha’penny 138: I know Ginger likes a bit of fluff, sweetheart, but, what man or boy doesn’t? |