| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| ruff2 |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  r f |
| NOUN: | 1. Games The playing of a trump card when one cannot follow suit. 2. An old game resembling whist. | | TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: ruffed, ruff·ing, ruffs
To trump or play a trump. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Obsolete French ronfle, roffle, a kind of card game, from Old French ronfle, from renfler, to rise : re-, re- + enfler, to cause to swell (from Latin  nfl re; see inflate).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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