pfft.

v.  the spray painting of graffiti.

<At night, a figure in dungarees with a mop of shaggy hair would have shaken a canister and angrily, joyfully, sprayed graffiti on the substation: pfft!  —Francesca Ferguson, Deutschlandscape>

v.  to break through; to surpass.

<Remember what Viola Spolin, the actress, teacher, and originator of improvisational theater, said: “First teach a person to develop to the point of his limitations and then—pfft!—break the limitations.  —Michael Levine, Guerrilla P.R. Wired: Waging a Successful Publicity Campaign On-Line, Offline, and Everywhere In Between.>

v.  to carelessly dismiss.

<You always go pfft when I say something good.  You should let me be loving to you.  —Sue Miller, While I Was Gone.>

v.  to combust into a cloud of smoke.

<My name and the clan, buried.  Burned up.  Pfft.  Becoming transparent smoke.  —Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Three Apples Fell from Heaven.> <Drinking at lunch, drinking before dinner, drinking during dinner, drinking after dinner, I declare if that little fat man with the bloodshot eyes that sat next to me stood near an open flame he’d have gone pfft like a celluloid collar.  —Herman Wouk, Youngblood Hawke.> <Till she’d done the unforgivable, landed the ultimate insult, and pfft!  That home’s up in smoke.  —Rosellen Brown, Half a Heart.>

- END OF PREVIEW - To read more, see the "Search Inside" feature at Amazon.com