muffish

English

Etymology

From muff +‎ -ish.

Adjective

muffish (comparative more muffish, superlative most muffish)

1. (colloquial, dated) lackluster or timid; effeminate; without spirit.
   • 1859, Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell, The North American Review - Volume 89, page 257:

     Placed in a tumultuous community, where obedience and study are deemed "muffish," and reckless mischief passes for "pluck," a high-spirited, impulsive boy needs aid from without to bear up against the temptations which assail him.

   • 1860, Florence Wilford, Play and Earnest. A Tale, page 327:

     I wouldn't be so muffish as to choose anything else.

   • 1875, Charles Thomas Samuel Birch Reynardson, 'Down the Road': Or, Reminiscences of a Gentleman Coachman:

     Nothing looks so cocktail and muffish on a coach as to see a man learning to catch his whip, and after many futile efforts taking it upside down for this purpose, and twisting the thong round and round with the point downwards, as if he was stirring porridge for a pack of hounds.

   • 1882, “A Little Blue Skye”, in Sunday: Reading for the Young:

     'In my opinion,' he added, recovering himself, 'it's you who are muffish if you can't manage your tricks by yourself. You were always better at that kind of thing than I was.'

   • 1903, Katharine Tynan, A Red, Red Rose, page 150:

     He might assure his red cheeks and sprouting moustache in the looking-glass that that fellow, St. Denis, had muffish ways, and that girls, especially spirited girls like Peggy, would infinitely prefer a more manly chap.

   • 1914, Charles Egbert Craddock, The Story of Duciehurst, page 208:

     "Is that what's the matter with you? You look awfully muffish."