Obs. or arch. Forms (with hyphen, or as one word, or as two words): 6–7 tuft-, tufte-; 6–9 tuf-, 7 tuffe-, 7–8 tuff-, (8 ? tiff-): see TAFFETA, TAFFETY. [f. tuff, TUFT sb. † TAFFETA, TAFFETY.]
1. A kind of taffeta with a pile or nap arranged in tufts.
1572. in Rep. MSS. Ld. Middleton (1911), 422. For vi yardes of tufte taffyta at xij s. the yarde.
1593. Donne, Sat., IV. 33. His Ierkin … had been Velvet, but ’twas now (so much ground was seen) Become tufftaffaty.
1635. Cranley, Amanda, 76. What shall I doe with rich Tuftafaties?
1735. Pope, Donne’s Sat., iv. 42. The suit … Was velvet in the youth of good queen Bess, But mere tuff-taffety what now remain’d.
1899. Mary Johnston, By Order of Company, iii. He … hitched forward his cloak of sky-blue tuftaffeta with an air.
2. transf. A person wearing tuftaffeta.
1613. Beaum. & Fl., Coxcomb, V. i. Such an old Tuff-taffity that knows not.
3. attrib. a. Made of tuftaffeta.
1587. Lanc. Wills (Chetham Soc.), III. 34. My blacke tuftafata hosen.
1611. Middleton & Dekker, Roaring Girle, E iij b. Any coacht veluet cappe or tuftaffety iacket.
c. 1618. Moryson, Itin., IV. (1903), 96. I did see her apparrelled once in a Tuft taffety gowne and an other tyme in a purple Taffety gowne.
1629. B. Jonson, New Inn, II. i. I’ll help to fit her With a tuft-taffeta cloak.
b. Clothed in tuftaffeta; luxuriously dressed; hence fig. Cf. TAFFETA B. 2.
1598. E. Gilpin, Skial. (1878), 49. I smile at thy Atturneys silken pride, Tufttaffeta state.
1612. Proc. Virginia, ii. 13, in Capt. Smith’s Wks. (Arb.), 97. We daily feasted with … fish, fowle, and diverse sorts of wild beasts as fat as we could eat them: so that none of our Tuftaffaty humorists desired to goe for England.
1614. B. Jonson, Bart. Fair, IV. iii. Such as you are … with your tuft-taffata hanches.
[1829. H. Murray, N. Amer., I. iv. 212. A plot which had arisen among what he [Smith] oddly calls the ‘tuftaffety’ part of the colony, to break up and return to England.]
c. Tuftaffeta cream: a very soft or smooth kind of cream; velvet cream.
1661. Han. Woolley, Ladies Direct., 98. To make the Tuff-Taffete Cream.
1773. Goldsm., Stoops to Conq., II. i. A shaking pudding, and a dish of tiff—taff—taffety cream. Hast. Confound your made dishes.
