muff

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To perform or handle clumsily; bungle. See Synonyms at botch.
2. v. Sports To fail to make (a catch).
3. v. To perform an act clumsily.
4. n. A clumsy or bungled action.
5. n. Sports A failure to make a catch.
6. n. A small cylindrical fur or cloth cover, open at both ends, in which the hands are placed for warmth.
7. n. A cluster of feathers on the side of the face of certain breeds of fowl.
8. n. Vulgar Slang The vulva.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A cover into which both hands may be thrust in order to keep them warm. It is commonly cylindrical and made of fur, but sometimes of velvet, silk, plush, etc., in bag shape or other fanciful design. The muff was introduced into France toward the close of the sixteenth century, and soon after into England. It was used by both men and women, and in the seventeenth century was often an essential part of the dress of a man of fashion; but it is now exclusively an article of female apparel.
2. n. The whitethroat, Sylvia cinerea. Macgillirray. Also muffet.
3. n. A cylinder of blown glass ready for slitting and spreading open in the flattening-furnace to form a plate.
4. n. A joiningtube or coupler for uniting two pipes end to end.
5. To mumble; speak indistinctly.
6. To perform clumsily or badly; fail, as in some attempt in playing a game; muddle; make a mess of.
7. Specifically, in ball-playing, to fail to hold (the ball) when it comes into the hands.
8. To act clumsily or badly, especially in playing a game, as in receiving a ball into one's hands and failing to hold it.
9. n. A simpleton; a stupid or weak-spirited person.
10. n. An inefficient apprentice craftsman.
11. n. Anything done in a clumsy or bungling fashion, as a bad stroke of play in a game of ball; specifically, in ball-playing, failure to hold a ball that comes into one's hands.
12. n. A lap or fleece of fibrous material, such as the lap of waste cotton, which is taken from the comb of a combing-machine.

Wiktionary

1. n. historical A piece of fur or cloth, usually with open ends, used for keeping the hands warm.
2. n. slang Female pubic hair; the vulva.
3. n. glassblowing A blown cylinder of glass which is afterward flattened out to make a sheet.
4. n. The feathers sticking out from both sides of the face under the beak of some birds.
5. n. slang An error, a mistake.
6. n. slang shortened form of muffin.
7. v. In American football, to drop or mishandle the ball, especially during a punt or kick-off.
8. v. By extension, to mishandle any situation.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A soft cover of cylindrical form, usually of fur, worn by women to shield the hands from cold.
2. n. (Mech.) A short hollow cylinder surrounding an object, as a pipe.
3. n. (Glass Manuf.) A blown cylinder of glass which is afterward flattened out to make a sheet.
4. n. colloq. A stupid fellow; a poor-spirited person.
5. n. (Baseball) A failure to hold a ball when once in the hands.
6. n. (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. The whitethroat.
7. v. To handle awkwardly; to fumble; to fail to hold, as a ball, in catching it.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. fail to catch, as of a ball
2. n. a warm tubular covering for the hands
3. v. make a mess of, destroy or ruin
4. n. (sports) dropping the ball