eff

name

1. Initialism of Electronic Frontier Foundation.

   “The EFF asked Legere about the issue on Twitter. After partially answering the question in a video, Legere said, "Who the f— are you anyway EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?"”

2. Initialism of Economic Freedom Fighters.

   “Once all the votes are counted, if the ANC remains below 50% it will be forced to enter a coalition with one or more parties. Depending on how low its support dips, it may need to form a deal with one of the larger opposition parties such as the DA or EFF to remain in power.”

noun

1. Alternative spelling of ef; the name of the Latin script letter F/f.

   “Why against printers all this noise? This summoning of blackguard boys? Why so sagacious in your guesses? Your effs, and tees, and arrs, and eſſes? Take my advice; to make you safe, I know a shorter way be half.”

   “‘Eff. You. En,’ said Mr Banstead. ‘Fun![…]’”

verb

Etymology: Back-formation from ineffable, ultimately from Latin effor (“utter”).

1. To put into words; to express.

   “[…] and perhaps also because what we know partakes in no small measure of the nature of what has so happily been called the unutterable or ineffable, so that any attempt to utter or eff it is doomed to fail, doomed, doomed to fail.”

   “They, no more than we, found it hard to eff the ineffable, but they, you see, needed to console themselves more.”