gruff

comparative gruffer · superlative gruffest

1. having a rough, surly, and harsh demeanor and nature.
2. hoarse-voiced.

   a gruff woman

3. hoarse.

   a gruff voice

present singular third person gruffs · participle present gruffing · participle past gruffed · past gruffed

1. To speak gruffly.

   “Who gave you that?” replied my father angrily. “Did you bribe someone?” “No,” I told him. “It was a gift, from some people who really want me to be on this trip.” “Fine,” he gruffed.

   2001, Benny Hinn, He Touched Me: An Autobiography

plural gruffs

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of grough (“gully in a moor”).

   They found Uttley's body on the bottom of the gruff.

   1903 August 29, Yorkshire Evening Post, page 6, quoted in the English Dialect Dictionary

   3 more examples

   […] Yorkshire and Derbyshire, where [...] the ordinary sportsman has to go "gruffing," as it is called, to game game, i. e., stealing up the "gruffs" or gullies and undulations in the ground, and trying all the clumps of long old twisted heather and broken bogs. […] the open places on the moor, and thus driving the birds forward to deep lying bogs and "gruffs" […]

   1888, Recreation: A Monthly Exponent of the Higher Literature, page 228

   […] the body […] was found in a 'gruff' or gully about three-quarters of a mile from the Poacher's Leap.

   1926, Emmuska Orczy, Unravelled Knots, page 386

   They roost [...] in peaty gruffs and drainage channels, and on moorland tracks and sheep- walks, […]

   1935, British Birds: An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to the Birds, page 231

1. BritishIndiaOf goods: bulky.

   […] articles that usually compose the gruff cargoes of our outward bound shipping.

   1765, John Zephaniah Holwell, Interesting Historical Events..., page 194

   1 more example

   […] which by causing a great export of rice enhances the price of labour, and consequently of all other gruff, piece-goods and raw silk […]

   quoted in 1869, James Long, Selections from Unpublished Records of Government... (page 171)