scoff, verb

/skɒf/
Forms:
Also schoff, skof.
Origin:
DutchShow more From Dutch schoften to rest, break from work for a time; to have a meal; or from schaften to eat.
Note:
Used in general English in this sense from the mid 19th century, at first probably an adaptation of scaff to beg for food (Scottish English, of obscure origin, perhaps from Dutch schaften), but latterly associated with South African English scoff, see scoff noun2.
a. intransitive. To eat.
1798 Lady A. Barnard Lett. to Henry Dundas (1973) 149No invitation on such occasions is necessary from the farmer, — when a waggon stops at the door, he concludes of course that the passengers want to scoff (to eat), and the horses the same after they have rolled themselves.
1840 W. Pitt Cabin Boy 151To see them schoff as they call it, (I mean eat).
1855 G.H. Mason Life with Zulus 193Surrounded with his choice viands, he would commence a war-song, or call for us to get up and ‘scoff’ (eat) with him.
1899 A. Lowth Daughter of Tvl 191I say, here come those three, still skoffing.
b. transitive. To eat (something) voraciously; to feed upon (something).
1900 F.R.M. Cleaver in M.M. Cleaver Young S. Afr. (1913) 73The local horses come along and skoff that bush entirely and wax fat and rich.
1903 B. Mitford Veldt Vendetta 122Why the Kafirs’d have skoffed the whole span long before and started out to rake in more.
1931 F.C. Slater Secret Veld 270Well, when you got outside some of that, you felt as if you had scoffed the finest hotel-dinner that was ever cooked.
1941 A.G. Bee Kalahari Camp Fires (1943) 48We still had a small stock of beautiful potatoes, and you should have seen how they skoffed them up.
1978 Sunday Times 24 Sept. (Mag. Sect.) 3Pancakes should be eaten immediately, in relays, with people scoffing their first, or second, or third, all piping hot from the pan.
1980 A.J. Blignaut Dead End Rd 96You must be thinking of your Hottentot brothers who scoff bats and frogs and lizards as well.
To eat.
To eat (something) voraciously; to feed upon (something).
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17981980

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Dutch
scoff, nounn.2Scotch cart, noun phrasen. phr.
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