puffy

adjective

ˈpə-fē 

puffier; puffiest

1

a

: swollen in size : bloated

puffy lips

… Hagrid gazed at him for a moment through his puffy, blackened eyes, apparently taken aback.

—J. K. Rowling

… who was … blind drunk, her voice slurry and her face puffy.

—Edna O'Brien

also : chubby

Fatty Hicks, the shrill and puffy son of Nat, flapped his hand at the beautiful stranger …

—Sinclair Lewis

b

: having a puffed up form or appearance : soft, light, and fluffy

puffy white clouds

a puffy bun

puffy hair

It is very difficult to shake hands when you're wearing ski mittens. They're so puffy and fat it's like shaking hands with giant marshmallows.

—Ann M. Martin

Not far away is a Georgian bakery where we found long, puffy loaves of wonderfully crisp bread.

—Jeffrey Steingarten

2

: blowing in puffs : gusty

a strong, puffy wind

3

: characterized by vanity or ostentation : pompous, showy

puffy rhetoric

All of my small, puffy pride at being the skipper of a tiny unit in a great nation victorious over the forces of evil seemed to blow away before the drunken racket of those three thousand men.

—Louis Auchincloss

puffiness

ˈpə-fē-nəs 

noun

Symptoms include nausea and vomiting, muscle weakness, headache and disorientation, as well as bloating and puffiness in the face and fingers.

—Susan Gilbert

Examples of puffy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The bag is designed with a stylish puffy exterior and a spacious interior that offers plenty of room to store your laptop, planner, wallet, and other travel essentials. —Gabriella Maestri, Travel + Leisure, 2 Nov. 2024

All of these details can help the provider more quickly suss out the genesis of your puffy node. —Erica Sloan, SELF, 30 Oct. 2024

The gold earrings were a pair of puffy cushion earrings in yellow gold by Jennifer Fisher. —Julia Teti, WWD, 30 Oct. 2024

The puffy product rose to prominence through the 1990s, eventually becoming ubiquitous in toy stores around the world. —Connor Sheets, Los Angeles Times, 28 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1594, in the meaning defined at sense 3