What is "fluff"

Fluff \Fluff\, v. t. & i. To make or become fluffy; to move lightly like fluff.
--Holmes.

Fluff \Fluff\, v. t. To make a mistake in the performance of; -- used mostly of lines in a drama; as, he fluffed the last line of the act.

Fluff \Fluff\, n. [Cf. 2d Flue. [root]84.]

1. Nap or down; flue[2]; soft, downy feathers.

2. Hence: Anything light and downy, whose volume consists mostly of air, such as cotton or down.

3. Something light and inconsequential; something not to be taken seriously; -- used commonly of literary or dramatic productions, and sometimes of people.

4. A mistake, especially in the recitation of lines in a drama.

"light, feathery stuff," 1790, apparently a variant of floow "wooly substance, down, nap" (1580s), perhaps from Flemish vluwe, from French velu "shaggy, hairy," from Latin vellus "fleece," or Latin villus "tuft of hair" (see velvet). OED suggests fluff as "an imitative modification" of floow, "imitating the action of puffing away some light substance." Slang bit of fluff "young woman" is from 1903. The marshmallow confection Fluff dates to c.1920 in Massachusetts, U.S.

"to shake into a soft mass," 1875, from fluff (n.). Meaning "make a mistake" is from 1884, originally in theater slang. Related: Fluffed; fluffing.

n. 1 Anything light, soft or fuzzy, especially fur, hair, feathers. 2 Anything inconsequential or superficial. 3 lapse, especially a mistake in an actor’s lines. 4 (label en New England) marshmallow creme 5 (label en LGBT) A passive partner in a lesbian relationship. 6 (context Australia euphemistic English) A fart. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To make something fluffy. 2 (context intransitive English) To become fluffy. 3 (context intransitive English) To move lightly like fluff. 4 (context transitive intransitive of an actor or announcer English) To make a mistake in one’s lines. 5 (context transitive English) To do incorrectly, for example mishit, miskick, miscue etc.

1. n. any light downy material

2. something of little value or significance [syn: bagatelle, frippery, frivolity]

3. a blunder (especially an actor's forgetting the lines)

1. v. make a mess of, destroy or ruin; "I botched the dinner and we had to eat out"; "the pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement" [syn: botch, bumble, fumble, botch up, muff, blow, flub, screw up, ball up, spoil, muck up, bungle, bollix, bollix up, bollocks, bollocks up, bobble, mishandle, louse up, foul up, mess up, fuck up]

2. erect or fluff up; "the bird ruffled its feathers" [syn: ruffle]

3. ruffle (one's hair) by combing towards the ends towards the scalp, for a full effect [syn: tease]

Fluff is a noun for anything light, soft, or fuzzy and may also be:

• Belly button fluff, also known as navel lint
• A lightweight file manager using the FLTK user interface library and the default file manager in Tiny Core Linux

Fluff is a Swedish punk band, formed from former members of the bands Mindless Sinner and Skinny Horse. They were formed in 1996 by Christer Göransson and Magnus Danneblad. They released one album in 1996, called Volume One. The band changed their name to Everlone, but the members stayed the same.

Many board games and video games provide their own fictional setting, or are set in fictional settings defined by other media such as literature or film. Fluff, in the context of such gaming fiction, refers to information that provides setting and context for the game.

By definition, fluff is never part of the proper game rules. As such, fluff has no impact on gameplay and can technically be ignored by the players without breaking the game or its rules; it could arguably be described as 'soft rules'. As a result, the concept may not be applicable for role-playing games where the rules are at the discretion of the game master and implied, contextual or otherwise 'soft' rules may be deemed valid and binding.

In the context of fiction, fluff is essentially synonymous with ' Canon', i.e. the body of all fiction deemed to officially shape and define the fictional setting. It often takes the form of short stories or background information found in rulebooks and game supplements, but can take any form. In highly developed, popular settings which have evolved beyond gaming, fluff may include anything from gaming supplements such as sourcebooks to novels or even movies.

By contrast, in the same context the term Blurb is typically used for brief explanatory texts (for individual gaming pieces etc.). Where they do not provide gaming rules for their subject, blurbs also fall under the definition of the fluff.