1630. Taylor, Workes. The smell is the senting bawd, that huffs and snuffs up and downe, and hath the game alwayes in the winde. Ibid. One asked a huffing gallant why hee had not a looking-glasse in his chamber; he answered, he durst not, because hee was often angry, and then he look’d so terribly that he was fearefull to looke upon himselfe.
d. 1631. Donne, Satires, iv. (Chalmers, English Poets, 1810, v., 158). To th’ huffing, braggart, puffed nobility. [[372]]
1643. Randolph, Muses Looking-Glasse, i., 1. Flowrd. Iniquity aboundeth, though pure zeal Teach, preach, huffe, puffe, and snuffe at it, yet still, Still it aboundeth.
1673. Wycherley, Gentleman Dancing Master, v., 1. How! my surly, huffing, jealous, senseless, saucy master.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife. ‘Prologue.’ Well, let the vain rash fop, by huffing so, Think to obtain the better terms of you.
1680. Dryden, Prol. to Lee’s Cæsar Borgia, p. 29. So big you look, though claret you retrench, That, armed with bottled ale, you huff the French.
d. 1680. Rochester, Poems, ‘Woman’s Honour’ (Chalmers, English Poets, 1810, viii., 239). This huffing honour domineers In breasts when he alone has place.
1682. Bunyan, Holy War (ed. M. Peacock, 1893, p. 72). He refused and huffed as well as he could, but in heart he was afraid.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Huff. To huff and ding, to bounce and swagger.
1690. The Pagan Prince. And the same threats and menaces of the palatine being carry’d to the marshal de Tonneure, notwithstanding all his former encomiums, Oh! quo he, the palatine’s a young prince; give him leave to huff and ding for his living; words break no bones: when all’s done, ’tis the coach wheel, not the fly that raises the dust.