tiff
Americannoun
-
a slight or petty quarrel.
- Synonyms:
- difference, misunderstanding, scrap, spat
-
a slight fit of annoyance, bad mood, or the like.
verb (used without object)
-
tiffs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
tiffed,
past participle, past
-
tiffing
present participle
-
to have a petty quarrel.
-
to be in a tiff.
noun
-
a petty quarrel
-
a fit of ill humour
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
tiffsimple
-
tiffssimple
-
have tiffedperfect
-
has tiffedperfect
-
am tiffingprogressive
-
are tiffingprogressive
-
is tiffingprogressive
-
have been tiffingperfect progressive
-
has been tiffingperfect progressive
Past
-
tiffedsimple
-
had tiffedperfect
-
was tiffingprogressive
-
were tiffingprogressive
-
had been tiffingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tiff
First recorded in 1720–30; origin uncertain
Explanation
A tiff is a minor, relatively unimportant argument or fight. A tiff with your brother might start over the subject of whose turn it is to take out the trash. It's no fun to have a tiff with someone, but it's usually resolved or forgotten easily. When you have a tiff with a friend, it's inevitably a squabble over some silly topic, and if you bicker with your boyfriend, you can call it a "lovers' tiff." In the 1700s, a tiff was an "outburst of temper," from an unknown source. Some word experts suggest the word echoes the sound of a "puff of air or gas."
Vocabulary lists containing tiff
The Catcher in the Rye
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Never Let Me Go
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Peter Pan
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The tiff between the two rap stars was one of the most talked about hip-hop events in recent memory, chock-full of the salacious, “he said what?!” drama of reality TV.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
Murray told police he regarded the fight as a "tiff", the court was told.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2025
In a year full of rap beef from artists like Megan, Minaj and Metro Boomin, Lamar took a grenade to his tiff with Drake and launched it.
From Salon ● Dec. 28, 2024
Back in 2019, Trump’s call caused a brief diplomatic tiff with Denmark, under whose sovereignty the vast island falls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2024
Apparently we are not quite over our little tiff of last night.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
She said this attitude can elevate minor tiffs on social media into real life fights on campus.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 29, 2023
The regular tiffs between Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, and European leaders like President Emmanuel Macron of France played better in England than they did in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
From New York Times ● Feb. 17, 2023
But Joan Aguado, South Pasadena’s film liaison, said neighborhoods tend to be self-regulating, so the city rarely needs to intervene in tiffs among property owners over film shoots.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2022
As narrated by Damon Runyon in his signature “Guys and Dolls” style, they describe the tiffs and rivalries among the habitués of a celestial saloon.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 18, 2021
But I didn’t believe it to be anything so different from other tiffs we’d had.
From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
When the lovers tiffed, the corpses looked "woebegone and reproachful."
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week the two tiffed on the bench.
From Time Magazine Archive
Recently he has tiffed with his superior, Secretary Harold Ickes.
From Time Magazine Archive
And if he got tiffed he would refuse to do a thing.
From The Corner House Girls Growing Up What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended by Grace Brooks Hill
But Lady Bayrose got tiffed at me, and at Aden shifted to a Cape boat.
From Out of the Primitive by Robert Ames Bennet
"Clint likes a director he gets along with, which makes a lot of sense to me--especially now," recalled Reynolds, his remark referring to his recent tiffing with director Dick Richards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2018
The post was wildly inaccurate, but it did portend a contentious subplot to USC’s opening game against Alabama: the schools and their marching bands are tiffing over “Tusk,” the top-10 Fleetwood Mac hit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2016
They are still flirting and tiffing in character.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 13, 2013
The near unmaking of The Marrying Man and the on-set tiffing between its lead actors, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, made a much read and sermonized-over feature in Premiere magazine.
From Time Magazine Archive
At one part of their journey they took their "tiffing," and after this they had to jump across a ditch, which the young officers cleared, but the major "jumped short."
From Second Edition of A Discovery Concerning Ghosts With a Rap at the "Spirit-Rappers" by George Cruikshank
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
