Other forms: puffs, puffed, puffing
A puff is a short burst of air, smoke or breath — one quick push out and then nothing. A puff of dust when you drop a heavy book, a puff of steam from the kettle, the puff you give a birthday candle.
As a verb it runs two ways: you puff on a cigarette or a pipe, and you puff when you are out of breath, so a man arrives puffing at the top of the stairs. Things puff up and puff out — a jacket puffs out in the wind, rice puffs up in the pan, and a puffed-up official is full of his own importance. Puff pastry is the flaky kind that rises into layers, and a powder puff is the soft pad for face powder. To huff and puff is to make a loud show of effort or complaint, and to be out of puff is to have no breath left. One puff of a cigarette is also a small amount of smoking: he had a puff and put it out.
1nounpuffA short burst of air, smoke, wind or breath.
“A puff of smoke came out of the engine and then nothing at all.”
2verbbreatheTo breathe hard and quickly because of effort.
“He was puffing by the second flight of stairs.”
3verbcigaretteTo smoke a cigarette or pipe in short breaths.
“She stood in the doorway puffing on a thin cigar.”
4verbswellTo swell, or to make something swell.
“The bread puffed up in the oven far more than she expected.”
puff is a burst of air.
Puff is Old English pyf, a blast of wind, and it comes from nothing more clever than the sound. Proto-West Germanic had *puff-, to blow, and Dutch still keeps puf. The word is what your mouth does when you blow out a candle, written down.
Proto-West Germanic
*puf(f)- — to blow, puff
Old English
pyf — a blast of wind, puff
Middle English
puff
English, today
puff
From Middle English puff, puf, from Old English pyf (“a blast of wind, puff”), from Proto-West Germanic puf(f)- (“to blow, puff”), of imitative of the sound origin. Cognate with Dutch puf (“puff, wind, fart”), Middle Low German puf, pof (“puff”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA