Muff vs Among - What's the difference?
muff | among |
(lb) A piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm.
*
*:Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff .
(lb) Female pubic hair; the vulva.
(lb) A blown cylinder of glass which is afterward flattened out to make a sheet.
The feathers sticking out from both sides of the face under the beak of some birds.
A short hollow cylinder surrounding an object such as a pipe.
(colloquial) A fool, a stupid or poor-spirited person.
* Thackeray
A bird, the whitethroat.
(sport) To drop or mishandle (the ball, a catch etc.); to play badly.
To mishandle; to bungle.
* 1977 , (Alistair Horne), A Savage War of Peace , New York Review Books 2006, p. 69:
Denotes a mingling or intermixing with distinct or separable objects. (See Usage Note at amidst)
Denotes a belonging of a person or a thing to a group.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Denotes a sharing of a common feature in a group.
*
As a noun muff
is (lb) a piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm or muff can be (colloquial) a fool, a stupid or poor-spirited person or muff can be (slang) a muffin.As a verb muff
is (sport) to drop or mishandle (the ball, a catch etc); to play badly.As a preposition among is
denotes a mingling or intermixing with distinct or separable objects (see usage note at amidst).muff
English
(wikipedia muff)Etymology 1
Probably from (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)Synonyms
* whiskers, beard, muff and beard (bird feathers)Etymology 2
Origin unknown; perhaps a specialised use of Etymology 1, above.Noun
(en noun)- a muff of a curate
Verb
(en verb)- Here was the superlative opportunity to make a generous and lasting settlement from a position of strength; but the pieds noirs , like the Israelis, and from not altogether dissimilar motives, were to muff it.
Etymology 3
Shortening.among
English
Alternative forms
* amonge (archaic) * amoung (obsolete)Preposition
(English prepositions)Can China clean up fast enough?, passage=All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism.}}
- Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us […]