Other forms: cuffs
A cuff is the band at the end of a sleeve, around the wrist. French cuffs, roll up your cuffs, a frayed cuff.
It is the part that wears out first, which is why old shirts fail there and why cuffs used to be replaceable. Off the cuff means unrehearsed, from notes supposedly scribbled on a shirt cuff. Cuffs also means handcuffs. Note that the origin of the word is obscure.
1nouncuffThe band at the end of a sleeve.
“His shirt cuffs were dirty from leaning on the desk all day.”
cuff is a part of a garment.
Middle English cuffe meant a glove or mitten. Its origin beyond that is obscure.
Proto-Germanic
*kupjō — cap
Proto-West Germanic
*kuffju
Frankish
*kuf(f)ja — headdress
Medieval Latin
cofia
Old English
cuffie — hood, cap
Middle English
cuffe
English, today
cuff
Built from
From Middle English cuffe, coffe (“glove, mitten”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old English cuffie (“hood, cap”), from Medieval Latin cofia, cofea, cuffa, cuphia (“helmet, headdress, hood, cap”), from Frankish kuf(f)ja (“headdress”), from Proto-West Germanic kuffju, from Proto-Germanic kupjō (“cap”). Cognate with Middle High German kupfe (“cap”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA