cuff

«cuff» in Mova's school dictionary: the end part of a sleeve, around the wrist — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a cuff, cuffs); verb (cuff, cuffs, cuffed, cuffing)

meaning for a pupil

1) A cuff is the end part of a sleeve, around the wrist. tree →

2) (US) A cuff is a turned-up fold at the bottom of a trouser leg (UK: turn-up). tree →

3) Cuffs (informal) are handcuffs, and to cuff someone is to put handcuffs on them. tree →

4) To cuff someone is to hit them lightly with an open hand; a cuff is such a light hit. tree →

5) A cuff is a band put round the arm to measure blood pressure. tree →

sense in the lessons

In clothes, a shirt cuff may have a button or a cufflink. In crime stories, police «cuff» a suspect. In older stories, a «cuff round the ear» was a light slap (hitting children is wrong and is banned in many places). Phrases: «off the cuff» (said without preparing), «on the cuff» (US, on credit).

examples

• The cuffs of my school shirt are dirty. tree →
• He rolled up his cuffs to wash his hands. tree →
• The police cuffed the thief and put him in the car. tree →
• In the old story, the boy got a cuff round the ear. tree →
• She gave a funny speech off the cuff, without notes. tree →
• The nurse put a cuff on Grandma's arm to check her blood pressure. tree →
• His jeans had wide cuffs at the bottom. tree →
• Fairies indeed are strange, and Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed them. tree →

note

Countable: cuffs. Regular verb: cuffed. «Off the cuff» means unprepared, not «off the sleeve». Cufflinks are small fasteners for shirt cuffs.

In the corpora

• So the Otter cuffed him and left him.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cuff» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.