See naff in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"derived": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "naff all"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "naff off"
}
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"etymology_text": "Perhaps from Polari, 1960s. Further etymology unknown; perhaps a conscious corruption of either fanny or eff (off) (see naff off).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "naffer",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "naffest",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
}
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"head_templates": [
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"expansion": "naff (comparative naffer, superlative naffest)",
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "niff-naff"
}
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{
"_dis": "92 8",
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{
"_dis": "80 20",
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{
"_dis": "86 14",
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{
"_dis": "81 19",
"kind": "other",
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{
"_dis": "74 26",
"kind": "other",
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{
"_dis": "86 14",
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"examples": [
{
"text": "That tie is a bit naff, don’t you think?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1998, Robert Llewellyn, The Man on Platform Five, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 291:",
"text": "She was an ordinary woman in her dress style; she didn't wear a leather bodice or naff over-knee plastic spiky-heeled boots.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2004, J. J. Connolly, Layer Cake, spoken by XXXX (Daniel Craig):",
"text": "I mean ten years ago a bit of charlie was for pop stars or a celebrities birthday bash. It was demonized by Daily Mail Readers getting drunk in naff wine bars.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Simon Doonan, Gay men don't get fat, New York: Blue Rider Press, →ISBN, page 206:",
"text": "Remember, “tacky” means “cheap or glitzy”, whereas “naff” is about stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically ordinary. The Jersey Shore is tacky, but The Bachelor is naff.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2019 February 24, Barbara Ellen, “Amy Winehouse could belt out a tune – her naff hologram can’t”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "A mere seven years after her tragic death, isn’t it grim and tasteless to send her hologram off on some naff tour?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 May 13, John Naughton, “A moment’s silence, please, for the death of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse”, in The Observer, →ISSN:",
"text": "Note that last phrase: what actually emerged was a virtual-reality platform called Horizon Worlds, accessible only via naff and clunky Oculus headsets (think an uncomfortable version of Zoom) […]",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable."
],
"id": "en-naff-en-adj-wJwmw-TI",
"links": [
[
"Bad",
"bad"
],
[
"tasteless",
"tasteless"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, Ireland, Commonwealth, colloquial, Polari) Bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable."
],
"tags": [
"British",
"Commonwealth",
"Ireland",
"Polari",
"colloquial"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "smakeloos"
},
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "ciki"
},
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "cikis"
},
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "gáz"
},
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "otstojnyj",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "отстойный"
},
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "póšlyj",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "по́шлый"
}
]
},
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],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2004, Pip Granger, Trouble In Paradise:",
"text": "The omie was a veritable donkey beneath the waistband, darlings. A donkey! No wonder your boss-palone is so smitten. I've seen my share, dollies, but this old omiepalone was shaken to the core. Such a terrible waste on a naff bloke.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Heterosexual."
],
"id": "en-naff-en-adj-shUgqSst",
"links": [
[
"Heterosexual",
"heterosexual"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(Polari) Heterosexual."
],
"tags": [
"Polari"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/næf/"
},
{
"audio": "En-au-naff.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-naff.ogg/En-au-naff.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-naff.ogg"
},
{
"rhymes": "-æf"
}
],
"word": "naff"
}
{
"categories": [
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English terms derived from Polari",
"English terms with unknown etymologies",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 2 entries",
"Pages with entries",
"Rhymes:English/æf",
"Rhymes:English/æf/1 syllable",
"Terms with Dutch translations",
"Terms with Hungarian translations",
"Terms with Russian translations"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "naff all"
},
{
"word": "naff off"
}
],
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{
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],
"etymology_text": "Perhaps from Polari, 1960s. Further etymology unknown; perhaps a conscious corruption of either fanny or eff (off) (see naff off).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "naffer",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "naffest",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
}
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"head_templates": [
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},
"expansion": "naff (comparative naffer, superlative naffest)",
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"related": [
{
"word": "niff-naff"
}
],
"senses": [
{
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"British English",
"Commonwealth English",
"English colloquialisms",
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"Irish English",
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],
"examples": [
{
"text": "That tie is a bit naff, don’t you think?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1998, Robert Llewellyn, The Man on Platform Five, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 291:",
"text": "She was an ordinary woman in her dress style; she didn't wear a leather bodice or naff over-knee plastic spiky-heeled boots.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2004, J. J. Connolly, Layer Cake, spoken by XXXX (Daniel Craig):",
"text": "I mean ten years ago a bit of charlie was for pop stars or a celebrities birthday bash. It was demonized by Daily Mail Readers getting drunk in naff wine bars.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Simon Doonan, Gay men don't get fat, New York: Blue Rider Press, →ISBN, page 206:",
"text": "Remember, “tacky” means “cheap or glitzy”, whereas “naff” is about stylistic shortcomings which are horrifyingly average and pathetically ordinary. The Jersey Shore is tacky, but The Bachelor is naff.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2019 February 24, Barbara Ellen, “Amy Winehouse could belt out a tune – her naff hologram can’t”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "A mere seven years after her tragic death, isn’t it grim and tasteless to send her hologram off on some naff tour?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 May 13, John Naughton, “A moment’s silence, please, for the death of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse”, in The Observer, →ISSN:",
"text": "Note that last phrase: what actually emerged was a virtual-reality platform called Horizon Worlds, accessible only via naff and clunky Oculus headsets (think an uncomfortable version of Zoom) […]",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable."
],
"links": [
[
"Bad",
"bad"
],
[
"tasteless",
"tasteless"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, Ireland, Commonwealth, colloquial, Polari) Bad; tasteless, poorly thought out, not workable."
],
"tags": [
"British",
"Commonwealth",
"Ireland",
"Polari",
"colloquial"
]
},
{
"categories": [
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"Polari"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2004, Pip Granger, Trouble In Paradise:",
"text": "The omie was a veritable donkey beneath the waistband, darlings. A donkey! No wonder your boss-palone is so smitten. I've seen my share, dollies, but this old omiepalone was shaken to the core. Such a terrible waste on a naff bloke.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Heterosexual."
],
"links": [
[
"Heterosexual",
"heterosexual"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(Polari) Heterosexual."
],
"tags": [
"Polari"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/næf/"
},
{
"audio": "En-au-naff.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-naff.ogg/En-au-naff.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-naff.ogg"
},
{
"rhymes": "-æf"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "smakeloos"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "ciki"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "cikis"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "gáz"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "otstojnyj",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "отстойный"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "póšlyj",
"sense": "in poor taste, not workable",
"word": "по́шлый"
}
],
"word": "naff"
}
Download raw JSONL data for naff meaning in English (4.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.