Meaning & use
scoff
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Meanings
verbintransitive
To speak about something in a scornful way, as if it is silly.
Grammar: Often followed by at: they scoffed at the idea.
Patterns
- scoff at something
- scoff at someone
Critics scoffed at the plan to build a tower on the hill.
He scoffed when I said I could finish in an hour.
Don't scoff at her dream until you've seen her try.
verbtransitiveBritishinformal
To eat food very quickly and greedily.
Grammar: British informal: he scoffed the whole pie.
Patterns
- scoff something
- scoff down something
The kids scoffed all the biscuits in five minutes.
He scoffed his lunch and ran back to work.
Who scoffed the last slice of cake?
nouncountableliterary
An expression of scorn or mockery.
Grammar: Count noun, usually formal or literary.
Patterns
- a scoff of disbelief
His only reply was a scoff.
A scoff ran through the crowd at the minister's claim.
She gave a short scoff and turned away.
Word forms
| third person singular | scoffs |
|---|---|
| past tense | scoffed |
| past participle | scoffed |
| -ing form | scoffing |
Common combinations
- scoff at the idea
- Experts scoffed at the idea of a cure in a year.
- scoff at warnings
- The captain scoffed at warnings about the storm.
- scoff in disbelief
- The judge scoffed in disbelief.
- scoff down food
- The boys scoffed down their dinner.
- scoff at the notion
- She scoffed at the notion that she was afraid.
Synonyms and how they differ
- mock
- Mock can include imitating someone, while scoff is mostly about showing scorn in words.
- sneer
- Sneer stresses the facial expression of contempt, whereas scoff is often vocal.
- scorn
- Scorn is a stronger and more formal word, and works as both a noun and verb.
- wolf
- Wolf, as in wolf down, is the closest word to the eating sense of scoff.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: scoff or scuff?
scoff vs scuff
Scuff means to scrape or mark a surface such as a shoe, and has nothing to do with mocking.
Practice
The experts ___ the claim that the machine could run forever.
Choose one answer.
To scoff, in the sense of showing scorn, takes at. The other prepositions are not used with this verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “scoff”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.