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''bluff'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904120411-00-⌔

bluff - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

bluff (countable and uncountable, plural bluffs)

  • (countable or uncountable) An act of bluffing; a false expression of the strength of one’s position in order to intimidate or deceive; braggadocio.
    • ✤ That is only bluff, or That is only a bluff.
    • ✤ “That’s enough,” announced Joolby with decision. “You’ve put up all the bluff you know, Carrados, and we’ve got you dog-beaten. […]”1
  • (poker, countable or uncountable) An attempt to represent oneself as holding a stronger hand than one actually does.
    • ✤ John’s bet was a bluff: he bet without even so much as a pair.
  • (US, dated, uncountable) The card game poker.
    • ✤ * BLUFF OR POKER [title of a chapter]*2
  • (countable) One who bluffs; a bluffer.
  • (slang, dated, countable or uncountable) Pretense, excuse.

Verb

bluff (third-person singular simple present bluffs, present participle bluffing, simple past and past participle bluffed)

  • (poker) To make a bluff; to give the impression that one’s hand is stronger than it is.
    • ✤ John bluffed by betting without even a pair.
  • (by analogy) To frighten, deter, or deceive with a false show of strength or confidence; to give a false impression of strength or temerity in order to intimidate or gain some advantage.
    • ✤ The government claims it will call an election if this bill does not pass. Is it truly ready to do so, or is it bluffing?
  • To perform or achieve by bluffing.
    • ✤ We bluffed our way past the guards.
  • (Manglish, Singlish) To give false information intentionally, to lie (to someone), to deceive; to put on an act.
    • ✤ Vinod, you want to bluff the doctor, your mother, father, uncle, auntie, CMPB all that I don’t care. But you cannot bluff me.3

Noun

bluff (plural bluffs)

  • A high, steep bank, for example by a river or the sea, or beside a ravine or plain; a cliff with a broad face.
    • ✤ In the sketch (which is taken about 75 Jovian days after that of the 2nd July) there is shown a dark copper-coloured streak along the southern margin of the south brown belt, butting on to a bluff-headed streak of cumulus cloud which may be the same remarkable bluff head noticed on July 2.4
    • ✤ It seems there was a worm that slept upon a pile of treasure, which it had zealously heaped up under a stone bluff.5
    • ✤ Bounded to the north and west by mountains and river, to the east by river alone, and to the south by high bluffs that mark the beginning of the loess country, it is a compact and easily defended territory hospitable only to nomads. Today these lands are divided between the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region and the Ning-hsia Hui Autonomous Region. Under the Republic the Ho-t’ao and Pao-t’ou plains were included in Sui-yuan province, and the Ning-hsia area in Ning-hsia province.6
    • ✤ Situated on bluffs above the Huangpu, a tributary of the Yangtze, Shanghai—which means ‘above the sea’—is sinking.7
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:bluff.
  • (Canadian Prairies) A small wood or stand of trees, typically poplar or willow.

Adjective

bluff (comparative bluffer, superlative bluffest)

  • Having a broad, flattened front.
    • ✤ the bluff bows of a ship
  • Rising steeply with a flat or rounded front.
    • ✤ a bluff or bold shore8
    • ✤ Its banks, if not really steep, had a bluff and precipitous aspect.9
  • Surly; churlish; gruff; rough.
    • ✤ […] he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels.10
  • Roughly frank and hearty in one’s manners.
    • ✤ Synonyms: abrupt, unceremonious, blunt, brusque
    • ✤ a bluff answer
    • ✤ a bluff manner of talking
    • ✤ a bluff sea captain
    • ✤ There is indeed a bluff pertinacity which is a proper defence in a moment of surprise.11

Verb

bluff (third-person singular simple present bluffs, present participle bluffing, simple past and past participle bluffed)

  • To fluff, puff or swell up.
    • ✤ Not a sparrow on the cottage thatch, where the chimney’s warmth had thawed the snow, that did not seem to have his great coat on, so bluffed out were the feathers, and not a frozen-out duck who did not glance up at the icicles hanging to the roof, and quack a prayer for rain.12
    • ✤ [W]hen the bare boughs of a tree intervened between her and the rising bright but deep red sun, frosted as the twigs were, on them sat a merry flock of sparrows, the feathers on their breasts bluffed out, as if they had donned warm winter spencers to shield them from the biting blast.13
    • ✤ I remember one idle bright afternoon here when Phillip bluffed out his little chest, sneaking expectant glances back at me and Cammy, until she “restrained” him from bickering with that beagle.14

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /blʌf/
  • (Australia, New Zealand) IPA: /blɐf/
    • Audio (Australia): 🔊
  • (Northern England) IPA: /blʊf/
  • Rhymes: -ʌf

Etymology 1

Probably from Dutch bluffen (“to brag”), from Middle Dutch bluffen (“to make something swell; to bluff”); or from the Dutch noun bluf (“bragging”). Related to German verblüffen (“to stump, perplex”).

Etymology 2

🖼️ ➺

Related to Middle Low German blaff (“smooth”).

Etymology 3

Possibly onomatopoeic, perhaps related to blow and puff.15

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

  1. 1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London: ↩

  2. 1845, Hoyle’s Games: ↩

  3. 1993, Haresh Sharma, Off Centre, Ethos Books, →ISBN, Act 3, scene I, page 86, lines 1–4: ↩

  4. 1878 November 8, C. Todd, “Observations at the Adelaide Observatory”, in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, volume 39, number 1, page 18: ↩

  5. 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 39: ↩

  6. 1990, Arthur Waldron, “The second debate over the Ordos”, in The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth ‎, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 125: ↩

  7. 2020, David Farrier, “Thin Cities”, in Footprints, 4th Estate, →ISBN: ↩

  8. 1769, William Falconer, “Côte en écore” (entry in An Universal Dictionary of the Marine) ↩

  9. 1845, Sylvester Judd, Margaret: A Tale of the Real and the Ideal, Blight and Bloom; Including Sketches of a Place Not Before Described, Called Mons Christi: ↩

  10. 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC: ↩

  11. 1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC: ↩

  12. 1866, Grantley F[itzhardinge] Berkeley, “Incidents of Sport”, in My Life and Recollections. […] Complete in Four Volumes, volume III, London: Hurst and Blackett, publishers, successors to Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 124: ↩

  13. 1870, Grantley F[itzhardinge] Berkeley, “The Fair Doe of Fernditch”, in Tales of Life and Death. […] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 117: ↩

  14. 2002, Nick Fowler, “Sunday in the Park with Sores”, in A Thing (or Two) about Curtis and Camilla, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN; 1st Vintage Contemporaries edition, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, June 2003, →ISBN, pages 285–286: ↩

  15. James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Bluff, v.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume I (A–B), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 947, column 1. ↩

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