Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Taffy |
TaffyNoun1. Chewy candy of sugar or syrup boiled until thick and pulled until glossy. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
"Taffy" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "someone who is loved". |
Date "taffy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1880. (references) |
Etymology: Taffy \Taf"fy\, noun. [Prov. English taffy toffy.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Industry | An obsolete moiré taffeta. Source: European Union. (references) |
Slang in 1811 | TAFFY, i.e. Davy. A general name for a Welchman, St. David being the tutelar saint of Wales. Taffy's day; the first of March, St. David's day. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Taffy has various meanings.1. In British English it is a slang term for a Welsh person or thing. It may be derived from the Welsh forename Dafydd, meaning "David", and is now considered offensive or contemptuous by many people.
An old anti-Welsh English rhyme goes thus:
(There are several additional/alternative verses.)
- Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,
- Taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef.
- I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't in,
- I jumped upon his Sunday hat and poked it with a pin.
2. In American English taffy is a term for a type of "candy" (itself a term in American English for confectionery). One kind of taffy is Salt Water Taffy. Taffy is made by stretching or pulling (AKA pulling taffy) a sticky mass of sugar to make it fluffy. When this process is complete the taffy is cut into small colorful pieces and wrapped in wax paper to keep it soft. It usually has a fruity flavor, but many other flavors are common.
See also:
- Paddy
- Mick
- Pejorative words and phrases
- Terms of disparagement
- Insult
- List of ethnic slurs
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Taffy."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
TAFFY | English | Technologically Advanced Family(Esiste anche la grafia taffy) | Abbreviation |
TAFFY | Italian | Famiglia avanzata dal punto di vista tecnologico(Esiste anche la grafia taffy) | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Sweetness | Sugar, syrup, treacle, molasses, honey, manna; confection, confectionary; sweets, grocery, conserve, preserve, confiture, jam, julep; sugar-candy, sugar-plum; licorice, marmalade, plum, lollipop, bonbon, jujube, comfit, sweetmeat; apple butter, caramel, damson, glucose; maple sirup, maple syrup, maple sugar; mithai, sorghum, taffy. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Taffy |
| English words defined with "taffy": molasses taffy ♦ peanut bar. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "taffy": CANDY PULLER ♦ hard-candy batch-mixer. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Taffy and the Jungle Hunter (1965) Salt Water Taffy (1930) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Taffy pulling Tugwell. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Taffy" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 57.14% of the time. "Taffy" is used about 14 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 57.14% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Noun (singular) | 42.86% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Total | 100.00% | 14 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| "Taffy" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "someone who is loved". | |||
| The following table summarizes names related to "Taffy." | |||
| Name | Gender | Language | Related Name |
| Davena | Female | N/A | David |
| Davinia | Female | N/A | David |
| Dawud | Male | Arabic | David |
| David | Male | Biblical | N/A |
| Daveth | Male | Cornish | David |
| David | Male | Czech | N/A |
| Dave | Male | English | David |
| Davey | Male | English | David |
| David | Male | English | N/A |
| Davida | Female | English | David |
| Davie | Male | English | David |
| Davina | Female | English | David |
| Davis | Male | English | David |
| Davy | Male | English | David |
| Dawson | Male | English | David |
| Taavetti | Male | Finnish | David |
| Taavi | Male | Finnish | David |
| David | Male | French | N/A |
| Dávid | Male | Hungarian | David |
| Daud | Male | Indian | David |
| Daithí | Male | Irish | David |
| Davide | Male | Italian | David |
| David | Male | Jewish | N/A |
| Dovid | Male | Jewish | David |
| Dudel | Male | Jewish | David |
| Dawid | Male | Polish | David |
| David | Male | Russian | N/A |
| Dàibhidh | Male | Scottish | David |
| Daividh | Male | Scottish | David |
| Dafydd | Male | Welsh | David |
| Dai | Male | Welsh | David |
| Dewey | Male | Welsh | David |
| Dewi | Male | Welsh | David |
| Taffy | Male | Welsh | David |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "taffy": molasses taffy ♦ taffy apple ♦ taffy toffy. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "taffy": taffy-nosed. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "taffy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | sheqerkë (candy, caramel, Goody, sugarplum, sweet, sweetie, sweetmeat, sweety, toffee, toffy), lajka (blandishment, butter, flatteries, flummery, oiliness, palaver). (various references) | |
Arabic | حلوى (candy, confection, confetti, dessert, fudge, goody, sweet, sweetmeat), تملق (adulate, blandish, blarney, butter, butter up, cajole, cajolery, coax, coaxing, compliment, con, court, cringe, curry favor with, curry favour with, fawn, flatter, flattery, incense, ingratiate oneself, insinuation, kowtow, lick his boots, make, mawkish, oiliness, palaver, servilism, soap, soft soap, subservience, suck up to, sweet talk, toady, wheedle). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | твърд карамел (toffee, toffy), ласкателство (adulation, blandishment, blarney, cajolement, cajolery, flattery, lip salve, oil, palaver, soap, soft sawder, soft soap, sweet talk, toadyism), прякор на жител на уелс. (various references) | |
Czech | velšan, karamela (toffee). (various references) | |
Farsi | نوعی اب نبات , تافی (Butterscotch, Caramel). (various references) | |
French | moire (Tabby), flatterie, bonbon. (various references) | |
German | Schmeichelei (adulation, blandishment, blarney, cajolement, flattery). (various references) | |
Greek | καραμέλα βούτυρου, είδοσ καραμέλασ, ουάλλοσ (welsh). (various references) | |
Hungarian | hízelgés (adulation, blandishment, blarney, butter, cajolery, cajoling, coaxing, flattering, flattery, palaver, sawder, soft solder, sycophancy). (various references) | |
Indonesian | gulali. (various references) | |
Italian | TAFFY (Technologically Advanced Family(Esiste anche la grafia taffy)), gallese (Cambrian, cymric, welsh, welshman), caramella mou (toffee), adulazione (adulation, blarney, flattery). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | affytay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | galês (cambrian, cymric, welsh, welshman), caramelo de manteiga. (various references) | |
Russian | тянучка (stickjaw, toffee, toffees), валлиец (welshman, welshmen), лесть (adulation, apple, blandishment, blarney, cajolement, cajolery, eyewash, flattery, lipsalve, palaver, sawder, soft sawder, sweet talk, sycophancy, treacle). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | vrsta karamele (butterscotch). (various references) | |
Spanish | caramelo (bonbon, candy, caramel, humbug, sweet, toffee). (various references) | |
Thai | ลูกกวา" (sweet). (various references) | |
Turkish | yağcılık (blandishment, blarney, butter, claptrap, greasiness, insinuation, obsequiousness, oiliness, soapiness, sycophancy, toadeating, toadyism), iltifat (attention, bouquet, claptrap, compliment, kindness, sugar), gal'li, bonbon (boiled sweet, bonbon, candy, comfit, confection, sugarplum), şekerleme (boiled sweet, bonbon, butterscotch, candy, catnap, confection, confectionery, doze, fondant, forty winks, fourty winks, goodies, kip, kiss, lay down, lie down, nap, snooze, sugar candy, sugarplum, sweetie, sweeties, sweetmeat, sweets, sweety, toffee, toffy), şeker (candy, drop, sacchar-, sucrose, sugar, sugar candy, sweet). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | цукерка з цукру і масла, грубі лестощі (applesauce, butter). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | ho n to n không (toffee, toffy). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Taffy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Atfi, Maffey, naffi, naffy, Shaffi, staffie, taf, taffe, taffi, Taffs, tafi, Tafia, tafo, tafy, Takfir, tefft, tf, tiffe, tiffy, tify, traff, tuffy, tufi. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "taffy" (pronounced ta"fē) |
| 3 | -a" f ē | chaffy, Daffy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-f-f-t-y" | |
-1 letter: yaff. | |
-2 letters: aff, aft, fat, fay. | |
-3 letters: at, ay, fa, ta, ya. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-f-f-t-y" | |
+2 letters: tiffany. | |
+3 letters: affinity. | |
+4 letters: fatefully. | |
+5 letters: affability, affectedly, afferently, affluently, efficacity, faithfully. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Usage Frequency 7. Names: Derived from 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Abbreviations 12. Acronyms | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
