eff
To put into words; to express.
Noun
- Alternative spelling of ef; the name of the Latin script letter F/f.
- Why against printers all this noise? This summoning of blackguard boys? Why so sagacious in your guesses? Your effs, and tees, and arrs, and eſſes? Take my advice; to make you safe, I know a shorter way be half. - a....
- ‘Eff. You. En,’ said Mr Banstead. ‘Fun![…]’ - 1969, Michael Feld, The Sabbatical Year, London: Alan Ross Ltd, page 301:
- A or an? When an indefinite article precedes an acronym or initialism, the choice between a and an follows from the pronunciation: / a FAQ file (“fack”; but “an FAQ file” with the alternate pronunciation “eff-ay-cue”) /...
Forms
Derived
Verb euphemistic, slang
- Synonym of fuck.
- Eff off!
- And he kept saying, "Effing this, effing that."
- “Holy moly. What the heck is happening here? Hey, hey! Let me out of here. Hey, you. Give me back control of my body.” “[scoffs] Nah, dude, this is my body. You already effed it up.” “No, it's not.” “Whatever, man. I...
Origin
From the name of the letter f (see etymology 1), the initial letter of fuck. Compare pee.
Forms
Derived
effable eff all eff and blind eff and jeff effer effing eff off eff up what the eff
Verb Entry 3
- To put into words; to express.
- […] and perhaps also because what we know partakes in no small measure of the nature of what has so happily been called the unutterable or ineffable, so that any attempt to utter or eff it is doomed to fail, doomed,...
- They, no more than we, found it hard to eff the ineffable, but they, you see, needed to console themselves more. - 2001, Paul West, Master Class: Scenes from a Fiction Workshop, page 57:
- It is another way of effing the ineffable, one with potentially serious practical effects. - 2018, Wesley J. Wildman, Effing the Ineffable: Existential Mumblings at the Limits of Language, page 83:
Origin
Back-formation from ineffable, ultimately from Latin effor (“utter”).