awf

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Alternative forms

Noun

awf (plural awfs)

  1. (now rare or obsolete) An elf.
    Synonym: ouphe
    • 1865, Monthly Packet, page 473:
      […] the first fact that craves our attention is that the Alfar, (Elves, Awfs,) and Dvergar, (Dwarfs,) stand in contrast with each other
    • 1875, James Anthony Froude, John Tulloch, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, page 489:
      […] the 'awfs' or elves, whose flint arrow-heads (awf-shot), shot in malice at cattle or human beings, are found everywhere in the houes and on the moors; […]
    • 1914, Elizabeth Mary Wright, Rustic Speech and Folk-lore, page 256:
      The thunder-bolts, and awf-shots, which we have already noticed among charms against human ills, were also used for the cure of disordered cattle. If an animal died of distemper, a portion of its flesh cut out and hung in the […]
  2. (obsolete) A fool or simpleton; an oaf.
    • 1750, John Collier (Tim Bobbin?), Eawther an His Buk, quoted in 1875, John Howard Nodal, A Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect, volume 14, page 18:
      What an awf wur I to pretend rime weh yo.
    • 1860, J. P. K. Shuttleworth, Scarsdale: Or, Life on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Border, page 163:
      Gin you, cankard awf (ill-natured lout), Silas mays a gawby (fool) o' Robin, he'll loase t' likeliest wench i' th' forest , an' […]

Etymology 2

Adverb

awf (not comparable)

  1. Pronunciation spelling of off.

Preposition

awf

  1. Pronunciation spelling of off.

Anagrams

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