Uffish
Revision as of 01:15, 25 June 2021 by Leah Zeldes Smith (talk | contribs)
Grumpy, crotchety, ill-tempered. It’s a neologism of Lewis Carroll’s, from his nonsense poem “Jabberwocky” (in Through the Looking-Glass, 1871).
And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood
Carroll defined it as “a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.”
The word made it into a few mundane dictionaries, but it is far from mainstream; it’s not particular to fandom, either, but it’s used enough we thought we should define it. Don’t be uffish about it, OK?
See also: Grotch.
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