limited to participation by women or girls.
She plays on the powder-puff touch football team.
inconsequential; trifling; lightweight.
a powder-puff company with little financing and a weak sales effort.
First recorded in 1695–1705
First recorded in 1935–40
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“To do another take, they’d first brought in helicopters to blow the sand but that didn’t really work. Then they used a very big version of a powder puff on a high pole.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2024
Also pink, courtesy of Seth Rogen in salmon Dior Men and Margot Robbie in powder puff Chanel.
From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2023
The Sun Devils haven't been world-beaters so far, but they've played two powder puff opponents.
From Fox News ● Sep. 17, 2021
She imagines swooning in his arms like some gauzy thirties film starlet, propped up on a blue powder puff and surrounded by thornless roses as he tells her he loves her.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 9, 2015
She tucked away her powder puff as the house-elf straightened up.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
More timidity to observe, more vulnerability in defence, more powder-puff stuff up front, more wide men running in ever decreasing circles.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025
But it was tame – powder-puff, if you will – and the lack of conviction allows the City goalkeeper to push it clear.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 15, 2020
Her career almost ended during a charity powder-puff football game during her junior year at Eastern High School in Vorhees, N.J.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2016
“They think it’s a powder-puff game that you sometimes see during homecoming week,” he said.
From New York Times ● May 15, 2010
James thought that the Almighty in that case must have an unexpected familiarity with the rouge-pot and the powder-puff.
From The Hero by Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
