tiff

• IPA^(key): /tɪf/
• Rhymes: -ɪf

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Originally, a sniff, sniffing; compare Icelandic word for a smell.

tiff (plural tiffs)

1. A small argument; a petty quarrel.
   • 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, Catherine: A Story:

     There’s Tom, now, since this tiff with Mrs. Cat, the scoundrel plays the Grand Turk here!

   • 1997, Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin, transl., The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; republished New York: Vintage Books, 1998, →ISBN, page 30:

     Something to laugh off, not make a big issue out of. We’d had a little tiff and would have forgotten about it in a couple of days.

   • 2000 September 30, Guy Browning, “How to... have a tiff”, in The Guardian‎:

     At the other extreme, couples who are married with children have heavily disguised tiffs. A man saying in a slightly strained way, 'I'm going to turn the compost', is actually saying, 'And that's all you are, Jean, compost!' Of course, what happens is eventually he apologises, they cry, make love, have another child, get overtired and the tiffing continues.

2. Liquor; especially, a small draught of liquor.
   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], OCLC 742335644, page 174:

     “Good wife,” said Skriegh, gathering up his mouth, and sipping his tiff of brandy punch with great solemnity […]

tiff (third-person singular simple present tiffs, present participle tiffing, simple past and past participle tiffed)

1. (intransitive) To quarrel.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:squabble

   • 1846, Walter Savage Landor, untitled

     She tiff'd at Tim, she ran from Ralph.

From Middle English tiffen, Old French tiffer, tifer ("to bedizen"; > Modern French attifer), from Frankish *tipfōn, *tippōn (“to decorate”), perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *tuppaz (“top, tip”). Compare Dutch tippen (“to clip the points or ends of the hair”), Old Norse tippa (“point, tip”), English tip (noun), Middle High German zipfen (“to prance; skip; sashay; bob; flutter; frisk”).

tiff (third-person singular simple present tiffs, present participle tiffing, simple past and past participle tiffed)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To deck out; to dress.
   • 1768-1777, Abraham Tucker, The Light of Nature Pursued

     Is the Miss under a force when she culls among her trinkets with curious toil to tiff herself out in the most engaging manner

tiff (third-person singular simple present tiffs, present participle tiffing, simple past and past participle tiffed)

1. (British India, intransitive) To have lunch.
   • 1841, The Asiatic journal and monthly register

     Besides that one to which the permanent residence was attached, Mr. Augustus had several outlaying factories, which he visited from time to time, to superintend the manufacture of his indigo; at all of these he had little bungalows, or temporary abodes, where we tiffed and passed the heat of the day.

• tiffin

tiff (plural tiffs)

1. Alternative form of TIFF

tiff in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• fift