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Added 9 October 2026

fluff

/flʌf/ noun

Latin root: villūtus Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about fluff at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

Anything light, soft or fuzzy, especially fur, hair, feathers.
Anything inconsequential or superficial.
That article was basically a bunch of fluff. It didn't say anything substantive.
A lapse or mistake, especially a mistake in an actor's lines.

verb

To make something fluffy.
The cat fluffed its tail.
To become fluffy, puff up.
To move lightly like fluff.

Origin

From earlier floow (“woolly substance, down, nap, lint”), also spelt flough, flue, and flew, from West Flemish vluwe, of uncertain ultimate origin: * Compare Old English flōh (“that which is flown off, fragment, piece”); see flaw * Possibly representing a blend of flue + puff; compare Middle Dutch vloe, or perhaps onomatopoeic; compare dialectal English floose, flooze, fleeze (“particles of wool or cotton; fluff; loose threads or fibres”), Danish fnug (“down, fluff”), Swedish fnugg (“speck, flake”). * Alternatively, West Flemish vluwe may derive from French velu (“hairy, furry”), from Latin villūtus (“having shaggy hair”), from villus (“shaggy hair, tuft of hair”).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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