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
Mr. Lee was mocked by activists earlier this week after a Reddit user posted a 1977 high school yearbook photo of him and other students dressed in opposite-sex clothing for a powder puff football game.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 3, 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
Her throne was an old cast-off powder puff.
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
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
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
Mr. Mars channels the powder-puff vocals of Jason Mraz on “Count on Me” as well as on “Marry You,” which borrows liberally from Coldplay in its spacious drums and forceful velocity.
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2010
As for Chennai, powder-puff in the pace department, "Deadly" Doug Bollinger can't arrive soon enough.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 2, 2010
I suppose now," remarked Savile sarcastically, "that you want a powder-puff, and a cup of tea.
From The Twelfth Hour by Leverson, Ada
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.
