Meaning
Slang for autumn and winter, the stretch when single people are said to look for a partner to settle down with through the cold months, typically until around Valentine's Day; the resulting couple is described as cuffed, from the image of handcuffs attaching two people together. Informal, rooted in African-American Vernacular English, and now a staple of online dating talk, usually used half-jokingly. Informal, jokey dating slang; often used self-deprecatingly about winter coupling. Regional use: US origin, from AAVE; now general online English.
Origin
The verb cuff, meaning to hook up with or attach oneself to a partner, is generally traced to African-American Vernacular English and the handcuff metaphor. For the full phrase, Merriam-Webster notes that the earliest recorded print uses date from 2011 in US college newspapers, and Urban Dictionary first defined cuffing season that same year, so the exact first use is unclear but sits around 2011 with no individual coiner known. It spread through college slang and social media, with popularity surging in autumn 2013, helped by rapper Fabolous using it in a song title that year, and again in autumn 2016. Dating apps and their seasonal activity reports have since made the term a recurring news hook each northern autumn.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- cuff
- cuffed
- cuffing
- cuffing szn
Usage Examples
- Cuffing season starts the night the clocks go back, according to her group chat.
- He is always partnered by October and single again by March, a textbook cuffing season pattern.
- Dating apps report their busiest sign-up weeks at the start of cuffing season.