white stuffn.

1874 E. H. Knight Amer. Mech. Dict. I. 563/2 In oil-gilding, a coat of clear-cole is laid on intermediate between the white stuff and the oil gold-size.

1891 Cent. Dict. White stuff, a gilders' composition, formed of size and whiting, used in forming a surface over wood that is to be gilded.

1891 Daily Nevada State Jrnl. 10 Apr. 3/3 Eighteen inches of the white stuff lay on the ground, and in some places piled up in drifts several feet deep.

1927 Boys' Life June 7/1 Perhaps, had he known the severity of the snow, he would have been wise to turn back... It might have been a squall of the white stuff.

1986 Sunday Times (Nexis) 9 Nov. Val d'Isere, a resort more familiar with avalanche than snow shortage, has bought an expensive computerised plant to manufacture the white stuff artificially.

1999 L. Freedman Father of Iditarod xxiv. 261 Only the tops of his sled handlebars peeked out from under the fresh blanket of white stuff.

2010 Jewish Chron. 8 Oct. 43/5 Most nights, we ate dinner surrounded by drifts of snow falling outside the window, since the white stuff came down every evening.

1908 J. M. Sullivan Criminal Slang 27 White stuff, morphine.

1915 G. Bronson-Howard God's Man i. iv. 39 There's quite a trade in laudanum... The ‘White Stuff's’ on the up-and-up too.

1953 W. S. Burroughs Junkie xiii. 127 I had never been able to drink before when I was on the junk, or junk-sick. But eating hop is different from shooting the white stuff. You can mix hop and lush.

1997 C. Newland Scholar (1998) xv. 252 Let's jus' say that the security were a little partial to a bit o' the white stuff, y'know?

2013 Sunday Independent (Ireland) (Nexis) 22 Dec. 21 Plenty of media stars are hoovering up so much of the white stuff at the nightspots where they hang out, they should have a Dyson installed up each nostril and be done with it.