puffy

adjective

ˈpə-fē 

puffier; puffiest

1

a

: swollen in size : bloated

puffy lips

… Hagrid gazed at him for a moment through his puffy, blackened eyes, apparently taken aback.

—J. K. Rowling

also : somewhat fat : chubby

Fatty Hicks, the shrill and puffy son of Nat, flapped his hand at the beautiful stranger …

—Sinclair Lewis

b

: having a puffed up form or appearance : soft, light, and fluffy

puffy white clouds

a puffy bun

puffy hair

It is very difficult to shake hands when you're wearing ski mittens. They're so puffy and fat it's like shaking hands with giant marshmallows.

—Ann M. Martin

Not far away is a Georgian bakery where we found long, puffy loaves of wonderfully crisp bread.

—Jeffrey Steingarten

2

: blowing in puffs : gusty

a strong, puffy wind

3

: characterized by vanity or ostentation : pompous, showy

puffy rhetoric

All of my small, puffy pride at being the skipper of a tiny unit in a great nation victorious over the forces of evil seemed to blow away before the drunken racket of those three thousand men.

—Louis Auchincloss

puffiness

ˈpə-fē-nəs 

noun

Symptoms include nausea and vomiting, muscle weakness, headache and disorientation, as well as bloating and puffiness in the face and fingers.

—Susan Gilbert

Examples of puffy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

An older protester in a puffy orange jacket chided him for being too anthropocentric. —Robert Moor, New Yorker, 2 Mar. 2026

Lo sits casually, leaning back on a puffy office chair, watching Hodgson move around the vast space while trying different variations of line readings. —David John Chávez, Mercury News, 1 Mar. 2026

Police are now looking for a suspect, described as a 26 to 30-year-old man wearing a black puffy jacket, a hooded sweatshirt, and black sweatpants. —Elyssa Kaufman, CBS News, 27 Feb. 2026

He was last seen wearing a black puffy jacket, a gray hooded sweatshirt and black sweatpants. —Deanese Williams-Harris, Chicago Tribune, 27 Feb. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1598, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for puffy

• buffy
• fluffy
• scruffy
• stuffy