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Ruff   /rəf/   Listen
noun
Ruff  n.  (Card Playing)
(a)
A game similar to whist, and the predecessor of it.
(b)
The act of trumping, especially when one has no card of the suit led.


Ruff  n.  
1.
A muslin or linen collar plaited, crimped, or fluted, worn formerly by both sexes, now only by women and children. "Here to-morrow with his best ruff on." "His gravity is much lessened since the late proclamation came out against ruffs;... they were come to that height of excess herein, that twenty shillings were used to be paid for starching of a ruff."
2.
Something formed with plaits or flutings, like the collar of this name. "I reared this flower;... Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread."
3.
An exhibition of pride or haughtiness. "How many princes... in the ruff of all their glory, have been taken down from the head of a conquering army to the wheel of the victor's chariot!"
4.
Wanton or tumultuous procedure or conduct. (Obs.) "To ruffle it out in a riotous ruff."
5.
(Mil.) A low, vibrating beat of a drum, not so loud as a roll; a ruffle.
6.
(Mach.) A collar on a shaft ot other piece to prevent endwise motion.
7.
(Zool.) A set of lengthened or otherwise modified feathers round, or on, the neck of a bird.
8.
(Zool.)
(a)
A limicoline bird of Europe and Asia (Pavoncella pugnax, syn. Philomachus pugnax) allied to the sandpipers. The males during the breeding season have a large ruff of erectile feathers, variable in their colors, on the neck, and yellowish naked tubercles on the face. They are polygamous, and are noted for their pugnacity in the breeding season. The female is called reeve, or rheeve.
(b)
A variety of the domestic pigeon, having a ruff of its neck.


Ruffe, Ruff  n.  (Zool.) A small freshwater European perch (Acerina vulgaris); called also pope, blacktail, and stone perch, or striped perch.


verb
Ruff  v. i. & v. t.  (Card Playing) To trump.


Ruff  v. t.  (past & past part. ruffed; pres. part. ruffing)  
1.
To ruffle; to disorder.
2.
(Mil.) To beat with the ruff or ruffle, as a drum.
3.
(Hawking) To hit, as the prey, without fixing it.
4.
(Card Playing) To play a trump card at bridge; as, he ruffed his partner's ace.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Ruff" Quotes from Famous Books



... large brown orbs; another might find in them worlds below worlds; a third, going deeper, might, Actaeon-like, surprise the bare soul. A curiously wrought net of gold caught her dark hair in its meshes, and pearls were in her ears, and around the white column of her throat rising between the ruff's gossamer walls. She fingered the racket, idly listening the while for a foot-fall beyond her round of trees. Hearing it at last, and taking it for her brother's, she looked up with a proud and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... blue-black hair, the foreign beard, and the aquiline features lent an added touch of distinction. One was reminded of those dangerously mild and rather sad faces of Spanish soldiers which look at one from Velasquez's canvases. This man might wear a ruff and a velvet doublet, or, better yet, a coat of mail, she reflected, instead of the well-cut but rather worn ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... his life as dearly as Sir Walter loved it met death as blithely. He dressed himself for the scaffold with that elegance and richness which all his life he had observed. He wore a ruff band and black velvet wrought nightgown over a doublet of hair-coloured satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches and ash-coloured silk stockings. Under his plumed hat he covered ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... on me, such as going about carrying food conspicuously in the mouth, then pretending to visit a far-off spot and returning without it; but he always ended by mounting the oak brush, ruffling up his neck feathers till they stood out like a ruff, and uttering his cry; it can hardly be called of distress, it became so evidently perfunctory. His mate never tried deception, but relied upon skulking to and fro, unseen among ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds, yet he was in great danger ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang


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