One who puffs; one who praises with noisy or extravagant commendation.
2.
One who is employed by the owner or seller of goods sold at suction to bid up the price; a by-bidder.
3.
(Zool.)
(a)
Any plectognath fish which inflates its body, as the species of Tetrodon and Diodon of the family Tetraodontidae; called also blower, puff-fish, swellfish, and globefish. They are highly poisonous due to the presence of glands containing a potent toxin, tetrodotoxin. Nevertheless they are eaten as a delicacy in Japan, being prepared by specially licensed chefs who remove the poison glands.
... very dark, with thick black whiskers, and, for a number of years, has been a victim to the habit of opium smoking. He began very early. He takes this drug both in his lodgings, over the gate of the Cathedral, and in a den in East London, kept by a woman nicknamed "The Princess Puffer." This hag, we learn, has been a determined drunkard,—"I drank heaven's-hard,"—for sixteen years BEFORE she took to opium. If she has been dealing in opium for ten years (the exact period is not stated), she has been very ... — The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
...
