What does baff mean?
"Baff" is a dialectal English and Scots word denoting the bark or yelp of a dog, and it also serves as a verb meaning to utter such a bark. It belongs chiefly to rural speech in Scotland and northern England, where it has long described the short, sharp cry a dog gives at a gate, at strangers, or in excitement. The word enjoys a second, quite different life in the history of sport: in nineteenth-century golf, a "baffing spoon" was a wooden club whose sole was allowed to skid along the ground before meeting the ball, cushioning the shot — a technique itself called baffing. Today both uses are rare, the first surviving in dialect and the second among enthusiasts of antique equipment, but the word remains a charming reminder of how everyday country vocabulary found its way into sporting terminology.
A bark or yelp made by a dog.
"A single baff from the farm dog announced every visitor."
Chiefly Scots and northern English dialect.
(Of a dog) To bark or yelp.
"The pup baffed all night at the foxes in the wood."
Dialectal; inflected forms include "baffed" and "baffing".
As a countable noun referring to individual barks.
"Two sharp baffs were enough to send the cat over the wall."
Before golfers had sand wedges, they carried a "baffing spoon" — a club designed to let the ball bounce off the turf, from the same old word for a dog's bark.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of baff
"Baff" appears in Scots and northern English dialect, where it has long been recorded as the bark of a dog. Its ultimate origin is obscure; like many animal-cry words it may have arisen imitatively rather than from another language family, so no secure cognates in other languages can be confidently cited. Its adoption into golf terminology in Britain produced the related terms "baff" (the skidding stroke) and "baffing spoon", attested by the nineteenth century.
Related word forms
How baff is actually used
"Baff" is a regional and largely historical word: it survives mainly in Scots and northern English dialect, and its golfing sense is now obsolete, familiar mostly to collectors and historians of hickory-era clubs.
Easily confused with baff
"Baffle" means to confuse or frustrate someone, while "baff" is a dialect word for a dog's bark.
"Buff" refers to a pale yellow-brown colour or bare skin, whereas "baff" denotes a dog's bark.