scuff
nounEtymology From Scots scuff (“to touch lightly, graze, hit”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old Norse skúfa (“to shove, push aside”), from Proto-Germanic *skeubaną (“to shove”). Or, perhaps imitative. More at shove.
1
Sometimes A mark left by scuffing or scraping.
- Someone left scuff marks in the sand.
- He flung his shoes across the room, their soles leaving black scuffs on the dingy wall.2015, Charles W. Jones, Hydrangeas on the Lanai:
2
The sound of a scuff or scrape.
- All you could hear was the rhythmic scuff of Mr. Stink’s battered brogues as he walked slowly along the road2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:
3
Australia, New Zealand A slipper.
- It was a dark, gloomy day, with black clouds driven by the wind, and scuffs of grey showers scudding among the hilltops. Presently lying couched amid the heather we saw the dragoons come marching loosely two and two,[…]1895, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Men of the Moss-hags: Being a History of Adventure Taken from the Papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway and, page 313:
- and when I got [to] the shoulder of the Craig yonder, cold scuffs of mist were reaching down from higher up, that told me how my view was to be spoiled, and warned me to mind my path. But I knew the heights; many a time have I been caught in the descending clouds, and a mist was like an old friend.1902, Nicholas Dickson, William Sanderson, The Border Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, page 159:
1 more example
- When, having lunched, we breasted the climbing path in the early afternoon, the mists came down on Dollar Law, and across the valley drifted "scuffs" of soft rain that soaked us ere we topped the summit of the Bitch Craig. The grasses were top-heavy with beads of water, and rudely shook themselves over our boots as we squelched through them,[…]1910, Nicholas Dickson, William Sanderson, The Border Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, page 52:
- Derived terms
- scuff mark
- Related terms
- scuffed