chuffed [1950s] If you are really pleased or satisfied you are chuffed. This word dates from the 1950s and is from the English dialect word chuff [E17th] meaning ‘plump or pleased’. To confuse matters, though, there is an entirely different dialect use of chuff [M19th] with the opposite meaning of ‘surly or gruff’. So for a while chuffed was also being used to mean ‘displeased or disgruntled’: ‘Don’t let on they’re after you, see, or she’ll be dead chuffed, see? She don’ like the law’ (Celia Dale, Other People, 1964). Chuff in the sense of the nether regions is another slang word from the mid 20th century of unknown origin.