huff and puff

Idioms  

1. Make noisy, empty threats; bluster. For example, You can huff and puff about storm warnings all you like, but we'll believe it when we see it. This expression uses two words of 16th-century origin, huff, meaning “to emit puffs of breath in anger,” and puff, meaning “to blow in short gusts,” and figuratively, “to inflate” or “make conceited.” They were combined in the familiar nursery tale, “The Three Little Pigs,” where the wicked wolf warns, “I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down”; rhyme has helped these idioms survive.

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Example Sentences

In the ad, Berlant suggests that the woman on the mountain needn't huff and puff on that ragged path upwards — an act meant to symbolize eating a plant-based diet to save the planet.

From Salon • Sep. 25, 2024

And for all the huff and puff, a panicked and pedestrian Wales were desperately short of quality and creativity in the final third, despite the array of attacking options.

From BBC • Mar. 27, 2024

When arctic seals huff and puff, icy air and water molecules fly up their nares and into a labyrinth of nose bones called maxilloturbinates.

From Science Magazine • Dec. 14, 2023

But within a minute or two, some stop in huff and puff, before pushing themselves on in an unusual challenge high in India’s remote and mountainous desert region of Ladakh.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 4, 2023

"You got something better, genius? Oh, I mean, moneybags," he asked, all huff and puff.

From "When I Was the Greatest" by Jason Reynolds

Related Words

• gasp
• heave
• huff
• smoke
• suck
• wheeze