Other forms: stuffed, stuffing, stuffs
To stuff something is to pack it full, pushing in more than looks possible. You stuff a chicken with lemon and herbs, stuff your clothes into a bag at the airport, stuff a cushion with feathers.
The filling for a roast is stuffing, and stuffed means full — of food, of feathers, or of a nose you cannot breathe through. A stuffed bear on a child's bed is a toy; a stuffed fox in a glass case is taxidermy. As a noun, stuff is everyday English for things in general: take your stuff off the sofa, I've got stuff to do. That noun is informal and it has no plural — stuffs is wrong. Know your stuff means you understand your subject properly, and in Britain get stuffed is a blunt way of telling someone to go away.
1nounbelongingsThings in general: possessions, materials or activities.~78%
“There's far too much stuff in this cupboard.”
synonyms: things, belongings
2verbpushTo push something quickly into a small space.~2%
“He stuffed the letter into his coat pocket and walked on.”
3verbcramTo pack something tightly full.~2%
“She stuffed the suitcase until the zip would not close.”
4verbstuffTo put a filling inside food before cooking it.~2%
“Stuff the peppers with rice and bake them for half an hour.”
Patternstuff sth with + noun · stuffed peppers / olives / vine leaves · stuffing
5verbskinTo fill the skin of a dead animal so that it keeps its shape.~16%
“The museum has a stuffed bear in the entrance hall.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 7 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
STUFF → fill it right up, like a full bag
Stuff your bag with things until it will not close; stuff the chicken with bread and herbs the same way, right up to the top.
Stuff came from Old French estofe and the verb estofer, 'to provide what is necessary, equip', which French had borrowed from Old High German stoffōn and Proto-West Germanic *stoppōn, 'to clog up, block, fill'. The word crossed the Channel twice: Germanic into French, then French back into English. Its close relative is stop, which holds the same idea of blocking something up.
Proto-West Germanic
*stoppōn — to clog up, block, fill
Old High German
stoffōn
Old French
estofe
Latin
stuffa
Middle English
stuf
English, today
stuff
Built from
From Middle English stuf, stuffe, from Anglo-Latin stuffa and its etymon Old French estofe, estoffe, estuf, estuffe, stoffe, from estoffer, estofer (“to provide what is necessary, equip, stuff”), borrowed from Old High German stoffōn, from Proto-West Germanic stoppōn (“to clog up, block, fill”). More at stop.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA