awf

English

Etymology 1

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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