tuff

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French tuf, also tufe and tuffe,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Italian tufo,^{[2][4][5][6][7]} which Florio glossed as a soft, crumbling stone for building.^[2] The Italian word is from Latin tōfus, also tōphus,^[2][4][7] which Barnhart takes as probably a borrowing from an Osco-Umbrian language.^[4] The OED notes that the feminine gender of the old French tuffe is unexplained.^[2] Tufa is the same Italian word, borrowed later directly into English.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A light, porous rock, in the phrase calcareous tuff: 1569, in T. Stocker's translation of Diodorus Siculus.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the word to the 1560s, and Dictionary.com to 1560–70.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

At first tuff named any light, porous rock and was used like tufa; the OED notes a later tendency to keep tuff for the volcanic rock.^[2][9] The volcanic sense, a rock formed from consolidated ash and other erupted material, is recorded from 1815, in W. Phillips's geology,^[2] which is also Merriam-Webster's first date.^[6] Collins defines it as rock formed from volcanic fragments less than 2 mm across.^[10]

Timeline

• 1569 – a light, porous rock, in calcareous tuff.^[2][4]
• 1815 – rock formed from consolidated volcanic ash and fragments.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rock formed from volcanic ash and small fragments thrown out in an eruption and later consolidated.^[10][6][2]
2. Any light, porous rock; tufa.^[2][9]

Word family

• tuffaceous

Related words

• tufa
• tophus

Usage notes

Etymonline records tuff as an advertiser's spelling of tough by 1940,^[3] and Green's Dictionary of Slang has it in American teenage slang for good or cool (1968).^[11] The OED and the Shorter Oxford also record an echoic verb tuff, to make a short explosive sound with the breath, from about 1553.^[2][9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com