Other forms: scoffed, scoffs, scoffing
To scoff is to jeer aloud at something, mocking it in words rather than merely feeling contempt for it. The laugh is out loud and aimed.
It takes at, and scoffing at an idea means dismissing it noisily. What separates it from sneering is that a sneer can be entirely silent and a scoff cannot. It is often used in the past to set up a reversal, since people scoffed at the idea is nearly always followed by an account of the idea working. British English has a completely separate informal verb meaning to eat quickly, so scoffing the lot means finishing all of it.
Middle English
scof
English, today
scoff
From Middle English scof, skof, probably of gmq - origin. Compare Old Norse skaup, gmq-oda skof, Old Frisian skof (“insult, shame”), and Old High German scoph.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word