Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person regarded as stupid or clumsy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In popular superstition, a changeling; a foolish or otherwise defective child left by fairies in the place of another carried off by them.
  • noun A dolt; an idiot; a blockhead; a simpleton.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Originally, an elf's child; a changeling left by fairies or goblins; hence, a deformed or foolish child; a simpleton; an idiot.
  • noun A clumsy or awkward person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete An elf's child; a changeling left by fairies or goblins, hence, a deformed or foolish child.
  • noun pejorative A person, especially a large male, who is clumsy or a simpleton; an idiot.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an awkward stupid person

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Old Norse alfr, elf, silly person; see albho- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From auf, Old Norse álfr ("elf") ( > Norwegian bokmål alv). Akin to German Alb ("incubus").

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Examples

Comments

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  • This has to be one of the best words ever.

    February 2, 2007

  • This word reminds me of pounding bread dough (or getting punched in the gut).

    November 15, 2008

  • My brother uses oof for exactly that sound. (He does it quite well. The sound, not the punching.)

    November 15, 2008