ruff

2 definitions • 4 examples

a large, stiff collar with many folds, worn in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries:

The portrait was of a bearded man wearing an Elizabethan ruff.

He wore a tunic of crimson velvet and a big starched ruff around his little neck.

a circle of hair or feathers growing round the neck of a bird or animal:

The bald ibis has a neck ruff of long, pointed feathers.

He was impressed by the monkeys' ruffs of white hair.