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# puff

«puff» in Mova's school dictionary: **A short burst of air, smoke, wind or steam** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a puff, puffs); verb (puff, puffs, puffed, puffing)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A short burst of air, smoke, wind or steam. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#m1)

2) (verb) To breathe quickly and hard, for example after running. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#m2)

3) (verb) To blow out air or smoke in small bursts. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#m3)

4) (verb) To swell up or make bigger: «puff out your cheeks». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#m4)

5) A light pastry or food filled with air: «cream puff». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#m5)

### sense in the lessons

In stories: «I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down» (The Three Little Pigs); steam trains puff. In PE, children are puffed (out of breath) after running. In health, an inhaler puff for asthma. Phrases: «out of puff», «puff out», «puff up», «a puff of smoke».

### examples

- A puff of smoke came from the chimney. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x1)
- I was puffing after running up the hill. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x2)
- The wolf huffed and puffed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x3)
- Puff out your cheeks like a fish. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x4)
- The bird puffed up its feathers to keep warm. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x5)
- She took a puff of her asthma inhaler. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x6)
- The magician vanished in a puff of smoke. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x7)
- The Frog puffed up still more. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/#x8)

### note

Past: puffed. «Puffed» or «out of puff» (UK, Australia) = out of breath. «Puffy» eyes are swollen.

### In the corpora

- [Male frigatebirds puff up a big red throat pouch to attract females, and frigatebirds can stay in the air for weeks without landing.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/14/)
- [Swell sharks gulp water to puff themselves up and wedge into rock cracks so a predator cannot pull them out.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/311-sharks-by-kind-small-and-strange-walking-sharks-wobbegongs-cookiecutters-and-goblin-sharks/16/)
- [Toad puffs up: «I'm not really clever, according to my friends.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/67-willows-ch11-part3-badger-and-mole-come-home/32/)
- [At lunch Toad is so puffed up that the others suspect something.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/72-willows-ch12-part3-no-speeches-and-no-songs/7/)
- [Mum leaves a bowl of bread dough by the radiator, and an hour later it has puffed up to twice its size.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/21-bread-rising-yeast-at-work/0/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «puff» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/puff/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.