toffee
Americannoun
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a brittle or chewy brown candy made of sugar or molasses boiled down with butter, often mixed with nuts.
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British. taffy.
noun
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a sweet made from sugar or treacle boiled with butter, nuts, etc
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informal (preceded by can't) to be incompetent at a specified activity
he can't sing for toffee
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of toffee
First recorded in 1860–65; the earlier variants toughy, tuffy were first recorded in 1825–30 ; southern British dialect form of original northern British dialect taffy ( def. ); further origin uncertain
Compare meaning
How does toffee compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Toffee is a hard or brittle candy made from butter and sugar. Some candy bars are made by coating toffee in chocolate. Yum! Toffee is often confused with another candy with nearly the exact same ingredients, taffy. The difference is mainly in the candy-making process: taffy is pulled and stretched until it's soft and chewy. Toffee, on the other hand, won't stick in your teeth like taffy, because it is boiled, shaped, and allowed to harden into a delicious, glossy slab.
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:
McIlroy called his choice of sticky toffee pudding a "crowd pleaser" but said he had had most fun selecting the wine.
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
A few of its products include coconut toffee roasted cashews, organic seaweed snacks and garlic mustard aioli.
From Salon ● Apr. 16, 2024
Slabs of roast pork, skin as brittle and sweet as toffee and bathed in vinegar garlic sauce at Dominican spots in Washington Heights.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 14, 2024
By 1902, when he was 19, Mars was selling toffee chips across rural Minnesota and married his first wife, Ethel.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 9, 2023
I loved toffee apples, and I kept nagging her the whole way through the shop.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
The real Quality Street chocolates, toffees and sweets are still made at the same site in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where they were first manufactured in 1936.
From BBC ● Dec. 21, 2021
In that same room there was a tin that seemed never to run out of toffees in shiny wrappers.
From The New Yorker ● May 7, 2016
The Mary Jane was one of the earliest toffees, and its beginnings in Paul Revere’s former home is beyond the greatness any toffee can reasonably expect.
From Salon ● Apr. 9, 2016
A late goal from Brian Oviedo sent the toffees up to fifth and Man U down to ninth in the Premier League.
From Children's BBC ● Dec. 5, 2013
The toffees had made them extremely thirsty and they had nothing to drink.
From "Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets" by J. K. Rowling
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.
