chuffed
/tʃʌft
/adjective [predicative] British informal
Very pleased: I’m dead chuffed to have won...
- There will be a lot of chuffed people today, including everyone who cares about Britain's heritage, all at the National Railway Museum and York tourist bosses.
- ‘I'm chuffed that so many came from York,’ Warters told the Evening Press after his victory over Ashton.
- The young art lot are always chuffed when Ferry turns up.
Origin
1950s: from dialect chuff 'plump or pleased'.
If you are really pleased or satisfied you are chuffed. This word dates from the 1950s and is from the English dialect word chuff (early 17th century) meaning ‘plump or pleased’. To confuse matters, though, there is an entirely different dialect use of chuff (mid 19th century) with the opposite meaning of ‘surly or gruff’. So for a while chuffed was also being used to mean ‘displeased or disgruntled’: ‘Don't let on they're after you, see, or she'll be dead chuffed, see? She don' like the law.’ (Celia Dale, Other People, 1964). Chuff in the sense of the nether regions is another slang word from the mid 20th century of unknown origin.