Other forms: huffing
A huff is a short sulk. You take offence at something small, go quiet, and leave the room — he walked off in a huff because nobody laughed at his joke.
The noun lives almost entirely inside a few phrases: in a huff, go off in a huff, storm out in a huff. The adjective huffy describes a person quick to take offence over nothing. As a verb, huff is the breath itself — she huffed and folded her arms — and huff and puff means either breathing hard from effort or making loud complaints and doing nothing, which is what the wolf does at the door of the three little pigs. It is informal, and it is only for small hurts: nobody goes into a huff over a tragedy.
1nounhuffA fit of offence and bad temper that does not last long.
“She left in a huff and was back twenty minutes later.”
informal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
2verbloudlyTo breathe out loudly to show annoyance.
“He huffed at the queue and looked at his watch again.”
3verbblowTo blow or breathe hard.
“The old dog huffed his way up the stairs one step at a time.”
Huff is the sound written down. It is a respelled hough, matching Scots hech, to breathe hard or pant, and German hauchen, to breathe. The word is a noisy annoyed breath, which is exactly what an offended person makes on the way out of the room.
Built from
Probably an altered spelling of earlier hough, represented by Scots hech (“to breathe hard, pant”). Compare also German hauchen (“to breathe”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word