1742 Proc. Old Bailey 12 July 9 Duffing is buying Spirituous Liquors from the Still and hawking 'em about, making People imagine 'em to be fine genuine Liquor, which they had smuggled.

1826 London Mag. June 173 There is a stratagem in old-clothes dealing called duffing. The practitioner..raises the scanty nap of a veteran garment, gives it a gloss with some preparation, and passes it off as new.

1838 R. S. Surtees Jorrocks's Jaunts 154 The chaps about him..were in the duffing line—sold brimston'd sparrows for canary birds.

1845 Chambers's Edinb. Jrnl. 15 Mar. 163 a The same coat..has undergone a mysterious process called ‘duffing’.

1851 H. Mayhew London Labour I. 380/2 ‘Duffing’, and all that is going down fast.

1858 A. W. Fonblanque Life & Labours (1874) 279 Duffing..is the art of giving such a gloss and air of novelty to old clothes as to pass them off for new.

1848 Goulburn (New S. Wales) Herald 19 Aug. Cattle stealing, in vulgar parlance ‘duffing’, a crime which was at one time so common in the colony, is now completely in abeyance.

1881 Cheq. Career 329 ‘Cattle-duffing’ and free-bootery.

1930 Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Mar. 23/2 Cattle-duffing is as far removed from sheep-stealing as expert forgery is from snow-dropping among suburban clotheslines.

1994 Canberra Times 26 June 21/2 The steep, heavily dissected country..is full of tales of human drama..including lifelong feuds, cattle duffing and lonely death.

2014 Townsville (Queensland) Bull. (Nexis) 22 Aug. 22 [He] had done 3½ years in Lotus Glen after being convicted for his part in the duffing of around 4500 unbranded cattle from company-owned Strathmore Station.

1890 Golf 5 Dec. 179/1 When we know the circumstances of genuine play, it is very easy to pass from them to the corresponding characteristics of every-day duffing.

1903 Golf Illustr. 7 Aug. 110/1 To prevent the stroke of the club being spoiled by the head or sole coming into contact with the turf before reaching the ball, which is commonly known as ‘duffing’.

1965 G. McInnes Road to Gundagai xiv. 259 The rest of the eighteen holes were a miserable exhibition of foozling, duffing, [etc.].

1999 J. Boren How to be Sincere Phoney 17 The change from productive action to orbital and image-oriented movement, I was to learn, is as difficult to achieve as a golfer to ‘unlearn’ bad techniques acquired through years of duffing on the course.

2006 P. Callaway Golfing with Master ix. 56 ‘And how do you get experience?’... ‘Two words... Bad shots.’ As surely as we learn to walk by stumbling, we learn to golf by duffing.

1967 Listener 31 Aug. 261/3 He may have been taught—either through a fine he couldn't pay or a duffing-up he couldn't sustain—that this age has rid itself of some semantic taboos only to enthrone others.

1987 Times Lit. Suppl. 25 Sept. 1052/3 He can expect a good duffing if he ever goes back.

1997 Empire Sept. 138/2 This 206 minute epic got a duffing by critics back in 1972.

2004 H. Small in G. Cantor & S. Shuttleworth Science Serialized x. 241 [He] bullishly concluded a duffing up of W. G. Ward in the December 1874 issue of the Contemporary Review with a statement that [etc.].

2016 Sunday Independent (Nexis) 7 Feb. 35 He received a duffing-up from her father at Paddington Station.

1839 Standard 4 Oct. Although it bore the name of ‘Grimaldi and Johnson, Strand’, on the works, it was what is called a ‘duffing’ watch, and was not worth more than 20s.

1851 H. Mayhew London Labour II. 19/2 Dealers in ‘duffing fiddles’. These are German-made instruments, and are sold to the street-folk at 2s. 6d. or 3s. each.

1883 Sword & Trowel July 355 ‘Duffing’ canaries, or painted sparrows.

1911 Manch. Guardian 3 May 4/3 Finding that it [sc. a ring] was not worth more than half that sum, and knowing there had been several instances of passing off ‘duffing’ jewellery, [he] made inquiries.

1913 ‘R. Dehan’ Headquarter Recruit xi. 122 That duffing Egyptian tiara of father's has got to be made up for somehow.

1862 Building News 3 Oct. 255/3 It will do much to foil these ‘duffing builders’ from duping honest buyers.

1865 Fisherman's Mag. & Rev. 2 438 We..packed up our little odds and ends of jewellery, &c., and, like duffing pedlars, carried them in our pockets.

1892 Proc. Old Bailey 12 Sept. 1188 When Stephens and I were locked up in prison, Stephens said, ‘I sent a duffing solicitor to him.’

1869 Quiver 3 Apr. 415 They said there was but a ‘duffing’ evening before them, with nobody but their sister in the house for company.

1875 Belgravia June 41 What a duffing old file you must be, then!

1881 J. Grant Cameronians I. iii. 39 A little brilliant singing, which Hew..secretly stigmatised as ‘the most duffing caterwauling!’

1918 M. Gray Black Opal ii. ii. 87 Did she think that a fellow—a duffing sort of chap like himself..—could make verses about a young woman without being in love with her?