Meanings
- CommonwealthIrelandUKcolloquialslangPregnant.
At 19, he was married (‘only because she was up the duff’ he explains gallantly).
1994, The Daily Telegraph, quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, page 88, 2nd edition, 20054 more examples
Lynda up the duff—what odds do you put on that, eh, Mr Clever Dick, eh? That's shut his gob. That's put a crease in his brand-new suit.
1987, David Leland, Wish You Were Here, spoken by Lynda Mansell (Emily Lloyd)“Well, when he found out that my gran was up the duff, he went back to his native Norway (or it might have been Sweden)[…].”
1998, Tracey Ullman, Tracey Takes On..., page 98It just means that some daft wee hairy that gets knocked up the duff has tae get oan the bus tae Carlisle tae get cleaned oot.
1998, Irvine Welsh, Filth, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 191The great coalface of fuckwits; the fly-by-nighters, who do their five years in Bondi, befriend a Roosters player, get a good coke dealer, meet some tight westie bitch who′s moved here while she works a job in PR, they fall in love, she gets up the duff and then they have to buy a house in Condell Park and they′re gone[…].
2008, Sam de Brito, The Lost Boys, page 14
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Unknown; the OED states that the phrase was originally Australian. Possibly related to in the pudding club (duff is a type of pudding) and thus related to dough.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
up the duff. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/up%20the%20duff
“up the duff.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/up%20the%20duff. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “up the duff,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/up%20the%20duff.
Source: up the duff on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.