biff

Etymology

It is imitative of the sound of a blow,^[2][3][4][5] or probably so,^[6][7][8][9] and began as an interjection, from which the verb was formed.^[10][11] The Oxford Dictionary of English calls it symbolic of a short, sharp movement and originally American.^[12][13] Onions compares the earlier dialect words beft, beff and baff,^[14] Green's Dictionary of Slang compares Scots beff, a blow,^[15] and Klein compares buff, a blow;^[16] Weekley thought it a thinned form of buff or buffet.^[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

The interjection, the sound of a blow: 1843, in J. S. Robb's Streaks of Squatter Life.^[2] The Dictionary of American Regional English dates the same book to 1847, quoting "I hit him, biff, alongside his smeller",^[11] and Etymonline dates the sound effect to 1847.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb "to hit" is recorded from 1877,^[5][6] though the OED's first quotation is from 1888;^[2] Green's Dictionary of Slang has an Australian example of 1885.^[15] In the United States it was used especially in the South and South Midland,^[11] and in 1892 it was noted as current among Southern students, most often in the game of marbles.^[11] The noun, a blow, followed by 1881 in Etymonline's dating,^[5] and Barrère and Leland's slang dictionary of 1889 called it an Americanism.^[2][15] The verb was used figuratively from 1895 for rejecting or refuting someone,^[2] and in British slang of 1923, in P. G. Wodehouse, biff off meant to leave.^[2] In Australia and New Zealand it came to mean "to throw" (1941),^[2][4] and in Australia the noun also means fighting, especially on the sports field.^[18] In Irish school slang a biff is a stroke of a strap or cane on the palm.^[8]

Timeline

• 1843 – interjection, the sound of a blow.^[2]
• 1877 – verb, to hit.^[5][6] The OED's first quotation is from 1888.^[2]
• 1881 – noun, a blow.^[5] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1886 and the OED to 1889.^[6][2]
• 1895 – figurative, to rebuff or refute.^[2]
• 1904 – used adverbially with go, with a violent blow.^[2]
• 1923 – to go, biff off, to leave, in Wodehouse.^[2]
• 1941 – Australian and New Zealand, to throw.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (slang) A blow, especially with the fist; a whack: He took a biff on the nose.^{[6][8][19][2]}
2. (Irish school slang) A stroke of a strap or cane on the palm of the hand as a punishment.^[8]

Verb

1. (slang) To hit or punch: She biffed him on the arm.^{[6][8][19][2]}
2. (chiefly Australia, New Zealand) To throw.^[6][4][2]
3. To go, or with off, to leave.^[2]
4. To reject, rebuff or refute.^[2]

Interjection

1. Used to imitate the sound of a blow.^[2][3]

Related words

• biffy

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary and the Dictionary of American Regional English also record biff as a variant of biffy, a toilet, which the American Heritage Dictionary takes as perhaps an alteration of privy.^[7][11] In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire dialect biff was a bough of a tree, the same word as bough, Old English bōh.^[20]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Deverson, Tony; Kennedy, Graeme, eds. (2005), The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary, Auckland: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
11. ^ a b c d e Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Onions, C. T., ed. (1966), The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
19. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
20. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)