miff
verbEtymology Compare German muffeln (“grouse, grumble”) and similar German words with similar meanings such as Muff, mupf, Muffel and Dutch moppen (“growl, grouse”). Probably related to mop (“grimace”).
1
Usually, Used in the passive To offend slightly.
- he [our Interpreter Shabonah] will not agree to work let our Situation be what it may nor Stand a guard, and if miffed with any man he wishes to return when he pleases1805 March 12, Bernard DeVoto, editor, The journals of Lewis and Clark, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1953, Clark's journal, page 85:
- 1824, Sir Walter Scott, Redgauntlet […] answered my Thetis, a little miffed perhaps -- to use the women's phrase — that I turned the conversation upon my former partner, rather than addressed it to herself.
1 more example
- 1911, James Oliver Curwood, Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police "Don't get miffed about it, man," returned Nome with an irritating laugh.
2
To become slightly offended.
- I amble on; yet, though I know not why, / So sad I am!—but should a friend and I / Grow cool and miff, O! I am very sad!c. 1797, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “To Simplicity”, in Sonnets Attempted in the Manner of Contemporary Writers:
- 1905, George Barr McCutcheon, Jane Cable She miffed and started to reply, but thought better of it.