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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



... 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 ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... heard a feller a talkin' about it yesterday. You know they are a havin' the big political convention here, and he said, (he wuz a real cute chap too,) he said, 'if the wind wasted in that convention could be utilized by pipes goin' up out of the ruff of that buildin' where it is held,' he said, 'it would take a man up to the moon.' I heerd him say it. And now, who knows but they have got it all fixed. There wuz dretful windy speeches there this mornin'. I hearn 'em, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... than the brow, With little ruff starch'd, you know how, With cloak like Paul, no cape I trow, With surplice none; but lately now With hands to thump, no knees to bow: ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... to the dining-room. William the Silent was dressed upon that day, according to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a wide-leaved, loosely shaped hat of dark felt, with a silken cord round the crown,—such as had been worn by the Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff encircled his neck, from which also depended one of the Beggars' medals, with the motto, 'Fideles au roy jusqu'a la besace,' while a loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide slashed underclothes ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... admitted to his privacy (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite disappeared; so too has 'quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket fitting close to the body; 'quellio' (cuello), a ruff or neck-collar; and 'matachin', the title of a sword-dance; these are all frequent in our early dramatists; and 'flota' was the constant name of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess' is employed by Evelyn, and is the Spanish 'entremes', though not recognized ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench


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