bluff (third-person singular simple presentbluffs,present participlebluffing,simple past and past participlebluffed)
(poker) To make a bluff; to give the impression that one’shand is stronger than it is.
Johnbluffed by betting without even a pair.
(by analogy) To frighten, deter, or deceive with a false show of strength or confidence; to give a false impression ofstrength ortemerity in order tointimidate or gain someadvantage.
The government claims it will call an election if this bill does not pass. Is it truly ready to do so, or is itbluffing?
A high, steepbank, for example by a river or the sea, or beside aravine or plain; acliff with a broad face.
1878 November 8, C. Todd, “Observations at the Adelaide Observatory”, inMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, volume39, number 1, page18:
In the sketch (which is taken about 75 Jovian days after that of the 2nd July) there is shown a dark copper-coloured streak along the southern margin of the south brown belt, butting on to a bluff-headed streak of cumulus cloud which may be the same remarkablebluff head noticed on July 2.
2020, David Farrier, “Thin Cities”, inFootprints, 4th Estate,→ISBN:
Situated onbluffs above the Huangpu, a tributary of the Yangtze, Shanghai—which means ‘above the sea’—is sinking.
1769,William Falconer, "Côte en écore" (entry inAn Universal Dictionary of the Marine)
abluff or bold shore
1845,Sylvester Judd,Margaret: A Tale of the Real and the Ideal, Blight and Bloom; Including Sketches of a Place Not Before Described, Called Mons Christi:
Its banks, if not really steep, had abluff and precipitous aspect.
Not a sparrow on the cottage thatch, where the chimney's warmth had thawed the snow, that did not seem to have his great coat on, sobluffed out were the feathers, and not a frozen-out duck who did not glance up at the icicles hanging to the roof, and quack a prayer for rain.
[W]hen the bare boughs of a tree intervened between her and the rising bright but deep red sun, frosted as the twigs were, on them sat a merry flock of sparrows, the feathers on their breastsbluffed out, as if they had donned warm winter spencers to shield them from the biting blast.
I remember one idle bright afternoon here when Phillipbluffed out his little chest, sneaking expectant glances back at me and Cammy, until she "restrained" him from bickering with that beagle.
bluff on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Bluff in theEncyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)