Puff

See also: puff

German

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• IPA^(key): [pʰʊf]

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeic, analogous to English buff.

Alternative forms

• Buff, Buf

Noun

Puff m (genitive Puffs or Puffes, plural Puffe or Püffe)

1. (now regional) thud, wham

Etymology 2

Onomatopoeic from the sound of the dice shaker hitting the ground.

Noun

Puff n (genitive Puffs or Puffes, no plural)

1. (obsolete because hardly played) a kind of dice game, anterior to backgammon

Etymology 3

From the dice game, from disguising idioms like „zum Puff gehen“ meaning really going to the bawdy house.

Noun

Puff m or n (genitive Puffs or Puffes, plural Puffs)

1. (colloquial) brothel, bordello

   Synonyms: Bordell, Freudenhaus, Hurenhaus

Descendants

• → French: pouf (“brothel”) (semantic loan)

Etymology 4

From the sense “thud, wham” understood as a whoosh forming a bulge, and in the sense “cushion seat” semantic loan from French pouf, the “laundry basket” apparently not present in French but extended in German from the broad sense in French of any textile heap.

Noun

Puff m (genitive Puffs or Puffes, plural Puffe)

1. (archaic) puff, a bulge in drapery
   • 1930, Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Book 1, Chapter 45:

     Aus der senkrechten Bügelfalte empor, schien Arnheims Leib in der Gotteseinsamkeit der Bergriesen dazustehn; durch die Welle des Tals mit ihm vereint, stand auf der anderen Seite einsamkeitsüberglänzt Diotima, in ihrem Kleid der damaligen Mode, das an den Oberarmen kleine Puffen bildete, über dem Magen den Busen in eine kunstvoll gefaltete Weite auflöste und unter der Kniekehle sich wieder an die Wade legte.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   Synonym: Bausch

2. a kind of beanbag chair, a large cushion ball used as a seat, Sitzpuff

   2016, Sarah Waters, translated by Ute Leibmann, Fremde Gäste: Roman, Köln: Bastei Lübbe, →ISBN, page 96:

   Du kannst dich auch aufn Puff setzen, so schmal wie du bist.

   (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   Hypernym: Sitzsack

3. laundry basket, Wäschepuff

Alternative forms

• (bulge in drapery): Puffe

Etymology 5

From English puff, hence often italicized and written with minuscule in early occurrences, and probably also sharing the English pronunciation.

Noun

Puff m (genitive Puffs or Puffes, plural Puffs)

1. (genetics) a chromosome puff