Scaff

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Informal or dialect term for food and provisions ; to eat something quickly and greedily, usually with a lot of noise
2. Slang meaning victuals or grub ; a verb describing the act of gobbling down a meal in a hungry, ravenous way
3. Regional word for nourishment or eatables ; to stuff oneself with food eagerly and without much manners

Etymology: "Scaff" is British slang for food, and its origin remains unsettled. One proposal is that it is a variant of "Scaife," an English surname, but nothing yet ties a family name to the slang sense. Another candidate is a borrowing from Belgian Dutch, which has a word spelled the same way. That would need a documented route from Belgium into English slang, and the evidence for it is thin. A third suggestion links the word to "Skaff," a Lebanese surname possibly derived from the Arabic for "shoemaker." That connection is hard to accept, since it depends on a surname passing into slang with no recorded step between them.