stuff 1 of 2

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as in material
the basic elements from which something can be developed reading, writing, and arithmetic—the stuff of an education

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stuff

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verb

1
as in to fill
to close up so that no empty spaces remain stuffed the box with tissue paper so the contents wouldn't rattle around

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

2
as in to gorge
to fill with food to capacity kids who stuff themselves with junk food after school and then don't have any room for supper

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

3
as in to cram
to fit (people or things) into a tight space stuffed all the kids into the back of the car

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of stuff
Noun
Its modest following often dismissed those posts as fakes, presuming the quartet staged spooky stuff for clicks. Dennis Harvey, Variety, 13 Oct. 2025 The world is filled with vehicles for the bad stuff − news, social media. Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 12 Oct. 2025
Verb
Tony’s Stromboli, the signature dish, is still stuffed with ham, sausage, salami, American cheese, mozzarella and mustard, served with marinara sauce to top. Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, 13 Oct. 2025 It's frequently served rolled into sausage-and-rice balls called boudin balls or stuffed into a casing like other sausage preparations. Elizabeth Mervosh, Southern Living, 12 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for stuff
Recent Examples of Synonyms for stuff
Noun
  • Channing Tatum’s Raw Physicality on The Tonight Show Channing Tatum is, above all things, a dancer.
    Bethy Squires, Vulture, 10 Oct. 2025
  • In 2022, life circumstances prompted her and her husband to make things official quickly.
    Ashley Vega, PEOPLE, 10 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites.
    Anjeanette Damon, ProPublica, 10 Oct. 2025
  • The team selected a multimode laser diode, which is widely used in medical and industrial equipment.
    Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 10 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Italy beat Israel 5-4 last month in Hungary, where Israel have been playing their home fixtures, but a defeat next week would throw their World Cup qualification hopes into doubt once more.
    Matt Slater, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
  • All of those factors contributed toward Exantus' time served in prison and lowered it enough for qualification for the program, despite him only serving seven years of his sentence, Hall said.
    Leo Bertucci, Louisville Courier Journal, 9 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • That engine, which is solid-fueled and made of carbon fiber composite materials, has been tested nine times on the ground, according to North Korean state media.
    Brad Lendon, CNN Money, 11 Oct. 2025
  • The Last Temptation of Christ Guadagnino goes back to the source material when discussing this Scorsese film citing the novel its based on in the same breath as Marty.
    Bethy Squires, Vulture, 11 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • The essence of impartial justice is treating like conduct alike—not identifying the target and then finding the crime.
    Ruth Marcus, New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2025
  • The essence of Bessent’s bet is that, with US financial muscle behind him, Milei can win them.
    Jason Ma, Fortune, 12 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • The historic gems that fill his Paris home are enough; his appetite is sated.
    Jazmine Hughes, Robb Report, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Six years later, he was assigned to be a pastor at a church in Bay Ridge, where the pews, once occupied by Norwegian immigrants, were filling up with Arab Christians, many of them Palestinian exiles.
    Eric Lach, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Chief among them is that kids have been gorging on Kit-Kats and Starbursts for decades, on this one day a year.
    Melissa Willets, Parents, 7 Oct. 2025
  • The bears have been trying to fatten up by gorging on salmon — including at times by only eating the skin, brains and eggs to focus on the most calories — before hibernating for the winter.
    Phil Helsel, NBC news, 1 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Blanton says detainees were routinely denied their medication and were crammed into overcrowded cells.
    Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Riders crammed armpit to nostril on train platforms.
    Eric Lach, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Stuff.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stuff. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

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