huffer meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

huffer

noun

UK /ˈhʌfə/ · US /ˈhʌfɚ/

Etymology From huff + -er.

US A drug addict who gets a high by inhaling or sniffing (huffing) intoxicating fumes, as in glue or aerosols.

Rare One who huffs.

“Taxi,” I yelled, “taxi,” racing across the street and grazing the bumper of a delivery van that veered and stopped short, the driver cursing me with proletarian gusto. I reached the door about half an arm’s length ahead of a grey-haired gentleman who huffed, “It’s mine, it’s mine,” and I dropped into the vinyl-covered seat, twirled the handle that lifted a safety-glass barrier between me and the huffer, […]1993, António Lobo Antunes, translated by Richard Zenith, “Morning”, in Act of the Damned, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published September 1995, →ISBN, “Two Days Before the Festival: Nuno All Day Long” section, page 22:
“I don’t want paperback.” / Of course she didn’t. “Well, you can borrow an electronic version. The library—” / “Eh, that’s not reading.” She huffed again. She was a major huffer. “Kids today, reading on their phones. That’s not real reading.”2021 May 4, Ellis Leigh, “Brittani”, in Bibliophile and the Beast (Books & Baes; 1), Kinship Press, →ISBN:

1 more example

Moving back out into the other room, I opened the other door, looking forward to seeing what Seamus’s room was going to be like. Unfortunately, that door opened up into a huge dressing room and nothing else. My heartbeat sped up and I turned to Seamus, who was biting his lip, trying not to laugh. I huffed louder than I’d ever done in my life. And that was hard because I was a good huffer! ‘It’s like the scene from a romcom movie. There’s only one bed.’2025 May 10, Kim Nash, chapter 31, in The Cornish Cottage by the Sea (Sandpiper Shores; 1), London: Boldwood Books, →ISBN:

Obsolete A bully; a blusterer.

To be expos'd in th'end to ſuffer / By ſuch a Braggadochio Huffer.1663 (indicated as 1664), [Samuel Butler], “Canto III”, in Hudibras. The Second Part. […], London: […] T[homas] R[oycroft] for John Martyn, and James Allestry […], →OCLC, page 205: