pfft.

v.  to disincarnate.

<The lama, when he was being led off to a prison camp, simply severed soul from body—pfft!—and that was the end of it.  Liberation!  —Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals.>

v.  to ejaculate, as in the song “The Big Black Bull” (“He pawed the ground and pfft in the fountain”), discussed in The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs by Ed Cray; see also ffftt.


v.  to fade away.

<What’s the point of living so long?  Then you get old and ... pfft!  You fade away.  Why not die defending the Holy City?  Be remembered as a martyr, huh?  —Bodie Thoene, Jerusalem’s Heart.>

v.  to spend money.

<They say they sleep in Indian wigwams, and eat dirty Indian food, and when they come back in the summer—pfft!—they spend everything they have earned.  —Elizabeth George Speare, Calico Captive.> <He had some money.  Whatever his aunt had lying around, pfft.  —Carol Lea Benjamin, Fall Guy: A Rachel Alexander Mystery.>

v.  to spit in disgust.

<“You should be ashamed of yourself ... pfft!”  He spat in disgust.  Wrublewski spat too.  —Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.>

pfft pfft.

n.  a call to lure a dog, as in Soon Be Free by Lois Ruby.

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