Muff vs Miff - What's the difference?
muff | miff |
(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:
A small argument, quarrel.
* 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
* 1872, Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree
A state of being offended.
* 1851, T. S. Arthur, Off-Hand Sketches
(usually used in the passive) to offend slightly
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* 1824, Sir Walter Scott, Redgauntlet
* 1911, James Oliver Curwood, Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police
to become slightly offended
* 1905, George Barr McCutcheon, Jane Cable
As nouns the difference between muff and miff
is that muff is a piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm while miff is a small argument, quarrel.As verbs the difference between muff and miff
is that muff is to drop or mishandle (the ball, a catch etc.); to play badly while miff is to offend slightly.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.miff
English
Noun
(en noun)- nay, she would throw it in the teeth of Allworthy himself, when a little quarrel, or miff , as it is vulgarly called, arose between them.
- John Wildway and I had a miff and parted;...
- She's taken a miff at something, I suppose, and means to cut my acquaintance.
Verb
(en verb)- ... answered my Thetis, a little miffed perhaps -- to use the women's phrase -- that I turned the conversation upon my former partner, rather than addressed it to herself.
- "Don't get miffed about it, man," returned Nome with an irritating laugh.
- She miffed and started to reply, but thought better of it.