Meaning & use
taff
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Meaning
nouncountableoffensiveinformalBritish
An informal, sometimes insulting nickname for a person from Wales, especially a man.
Grammar: Countable, often capitalized: a Taff, the Taffs.
Some Welsh people dislike the word taff when strangers use it as a label.
In old army slang a Welshman was called a taff, though modern speakers avoid it.
The commentator apologized for calling the player a taff on live radio.
Word forms
| plural | taffs |
|---|
Common combinations
- call someone a taff
- Never call someone a taff unless you know they are fine with it.
- a Taff from the valleys
- He joked that he was a proper Taff from the valleys.
- the word taff
- The word taff can cause offense in some settings.
- taff slang
- Taff slang appears in old barracks stories.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- Taffy noun
- another slang name for a Welsh person
- Welsh adjective
- relating to Wales
- Wales proper noun
- the country in the west of Great Britain
Commonly confused: taff or toffee?
taff vs toffee
Toffee is a chewy sweet, and taffy is a pulled candy in American English, both unrelated to the slang sense.
Practice
Which word is the neutral, polite way to refer to someone from Wales?
Choose one answer.
Welsh person is neutral. Taff and Taffy are slang nicknames that can be insulting, and the last option is not a real term.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “taff”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.