Definitions

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

  • noun A mass or coating of fine, light fibers, hairs, or particles; down.
  • intransitive verb To cover with fine, light fibers, hairs, or particles.
  • intransitive verb To make blurred or indistinct.
  • intransitive verb To become blurred or obscure.
  • noun The police.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Fine downy particles, as on the surface of some fruits, as the peach; loose fibers, as on the surface of cloth, or separated from it by friction; loose volatile matter.
  • noun A puffball; a fuzzball.
  • To fly off in minute particles.
  • To intoxicate; fuddle; fuzzle.

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

  • intransitive verb To fly off in minute particles.
  • transitive verb obsolete To make drunk.
  • noun Fine, light particles or fibers; loose, volatile matter.
  • noun a kind of fungus or mushroom, which, when pressed, bursts and scatters a fine dust; a puffball.

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

  • noun A frizzy mass of hair or fibre.
  • noun A blurred image.
  • noun computing The random data used in fuzz testing.
  • verb transitive Make fuzzy.
  • verb intransitive Become fuzzy.
  • noun slang, dated, with "the" The police.

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

  • noun uncomplimentary terms for a policeman
  • noun a hazy or indistinct representation
  • noun filamentous hairlike growth on a plant
  • noun the first beard of an adolescent boy

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps back-formation from fuzzy.]

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

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fuzz.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Mudhoney has an album, "March to Fuzz"

    December 6, 2006

  • peach fuzz buzz

    December 6, 2006

  • "Despite the venal patronage of Elektra, Transatlantic, Polydor, EMI, Track, Apple, the Inland Revenue and Radio 1, the Underground remains uncharted, unreliable, unrewarding and irresponsible. If everyone who clamours to be of it today were to deny it tomorrow it would exist still. Miss Nicholson may tell the fuzz anything she pleases - her cunt knows better."

    - 'The Million-Dollar Underground', Germaine Greer in Oz, 1969.

    March 27, 2008