Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
📦 Things or belongings 🧱 A material ⭐ Qualities needed 🧳 To fill tightly 🍕 To eat a lot 🦃 To fill food 🦉 To preserve animal
to stuff

to stuff

56 8.4
To fill a dead animal's skin to keep its shape for people to see
  • verb
  • /stʌf/
  • Specialized
translation icon : disecar
  • At the Old West exhibit, a stuffed bison stood on display.
  • stuff the skin
  • stuff a bird
  • stuff the body

Examples

  • I wonder if I could have that dog stuffed.

    Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993)

  • And this is a very pretty one, and they wanted to actually stuff it, I guess.

    Mars (2024)

  • We pan around the room, seeing all the stuffed and mounted wildlife who seem to be watching.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • I've seen birds stuffed and mounted so lifelike... you'd swear you saw them breathing.

    The Crow: Salvation (2000)

  • The taxidermist will stuff the bear to showcase it in the museum.

  • After catching the rare bird, he decided to stuff it for display.

  • The skilled artist learned how to stuff many types of animals for her collection.

Idioms

to sweat the small stuff
  • Informal
4 7.7

Worry too much about small, unimportant things

to strut one's stuff
  • Informal
3 7.7

To confidently show your skills or style to impress people

stuff and nonsense
  • Informal
1 6.6

Silly talk that is not true or useful

stuff you
  • Offensive
1 9.9

Rude words used to tell someone to go away and show anger

Phrasal Verbs

to stuff one's face
  • Informal
3 8.2

To eat a lot of food very quickly

to stuff the ballot box
  • Literature
2 8.4

To add fake votes to an election to change its result

Compounds

real stuff
18 4.2

A thing that is original and not a fake

hot stuff
  • Informal
11 7.2

A person or thing that many people like and find exciting

small stuff
  • Specialized
1 8.6

A thin rope on a ship used for small tasks like tying or securing

greasy kid's stuff
  • Informal
9.9

Entertainment for children that is low quality and simple

sob stuff
  • Archaic
8.5

Words or stories meant to make people feel pity by showing personal suffering

stuff shot
  • Jargon
7.0

A basketball play where a player puts the ball down hard through the hoop

wimpy stuff
  • Informal
8.9

A weak, low-quality thing that lacks power or excitement

How Preserved

to stuff
  • Specialized
56 8.4
to preserve
65 3.2
to cure
26 4.6

Surface Forms

stuff infinitive
stuffed past
stuffed past participle
stuffing present participle
stuffs third person singular

Etymology

The taxidermy sense of stuff is also from the idea 'to fill' — you 'fill' an animal's skin to keep its shape, which is why to stuff an animal means to fill it for display.