Meaning & use
plum duff
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Meaning
noununcountableold-fashioned
A heavy boiled or steamed pudding made with flour, suet and dried fruit, traditionally eaten by sailors and at festive meals.
Grammar: Usually uncountable as a food: a slice of plum duff.
Patterns
- a slice of plum duff
- a bowl of plum duff
The ship's cook served plum duff on Sundays.
Grandmother's plum duff was heavy, sweet and full of raisins.
Sailors in the old story looked forward to plum duff at Christmas.
Common combinations
- boiled plum duff
- Boiled plum duff was a favorite on long voyages.
- serve plum duff
- They served plum duff with custard.
- a slice of plum duff
- He asked for a slice of plum duff after dinner.
- plum duff and custard
- The meal ended with plum duff and custard.
Synonyms and how they differ
- plum pudding
- Plum pudding is the more familiar name for a rich Christmas pudding, while plum duff suggests a plainer, sailor's version.
- suet pudding
- Suet pudding names the type, but it need not contain fruit, unlike plum duff.
- Christmas pudding
- Christmas pudding is richer and more elaborate, with spices and spirits, so plum duff is the simpler cousin.
Word family
Commonly confused: plum duff or duff?
plum duff vs duff
Duff by itself can mean useless or broken in British slang, as in a duff idea, so it is not the same as the pudding.
Practice
On the old sailing ship, the crew looked forward to plum duff, which was a kind of ___.
Choose one answer.
Plum duff is a heavy boiled pudding made with dried fruit. A salad, a fish dish and a juice are not puddings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “plum duff”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.