Other forms: scuffed, scuffing, scuffs
To scuff is to mark a surface by rubbing it. Scuff your shoes, a scuffed floor, scuff the paint.
The mark is shallow, which is what separates it from a scratch, and it is usually the finish rather than the material that has gone. Scuffing a surface on purpose before painting gives the new coat something to grip.
1verbscuffTo mark a surface by rubbing it.
“The children scuffed their new shoes playing football in the playground.”
scuff is a marking.
From a Scots word meaning to graze or touch lightly, of uncertain origin.
Proto-Germanic
*skeubaną — to shove
Old Norse
skúfa — to shove, push aside
Scots
scuff — to touch lightly, graze, hit
English, today
scuff
From Scots scuff (“to touch lightly, graze, hit”), of unknown origin. Perhaps from Old Norse skúfa (“to shove, push aside”), from Proto-Germanic skeubaną (“to shove”). Or, perhaps imitative of the sound. More at a doublet of shove.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA