cuffe

Middle English cuffe appeared in the fourteenth century meaning a mitten or a glove. By the sixteenth century, it had shifted to mean the turned-back fold at the end of a sleeve. The origin is uncertain — possibly from a Scandinavian source (compare Swedish kuffa, 'to push'), or possibly from an unrecorded Old English or Anglo-Norman word. The etymology is a dead end. The garment exists; its word's ancestry does not.

Cuffs became fashion statements in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Elaborate turned-back cuffs on men's coats — sometimes extending halfway up the forearm — were trimmed with lace, embroidered with gold thread, and buttoned with jeweled buttons. The cuff was the most visible part of the coat sleeve and the most decorated. French cuffs on shirts — double cuffs fastened with cuff links — preserve this tradition of decorative wrist architecture.

The verb 'to cuff' — meaning to strike with the open hand — appeared around the same time as the garment word but is probably unrelated. The coincidence is awkward: a cuff on the wrist and a cuff to the head share four letters and nothing else. Some etymologists have tried to connect them (perhaps striking with a cuffed hand?), but no convincing link has been established.

Modern cuffs include shirt cuffs (buttoned or linked), trouser cuffs (turned-up hems on pants), and handcuffs (metal restraints for wrists, recorded from 1684). The handcuff may connect the garment and the restraint: both encircle the wrist. Whether the cuff of a sleeve and the cuff of a slap are related remains one of English etymology's minor mysteries.