ruff1

 
Pronunciation: /rʌf/

noun

  • 1a projecting starched frill worn round the neck, characteristic of Elizabethan and Jacobean costume: an Elizabethan ruff
  • 2a projecting or conspicuously coloured ring of feathers or hair round the neck of a bird or mammal: a ruff of long pointed feathers my nape stirred like the ruff of a dog in a thunderstorm
  • 3a pigeon of a domestic breed with a ruff of feathers on its neck.
  • 4 (plural or ruffs) a North Eurasian wading bird, the male of which has a large variously coloured ruff and ear tufts in the breeding season, used in display.
    • Philomachus pugnax, family Scolopacidae; the female is called a reeve

Derivatives

ruffed

adjective

ruff-like

adjective

Origin:

early 16th century (first used denoting a frill around a sleeve): probably from a variant of rough