gruff
adjective/ɡrʌf/
/ɡrʌf/
- (of a voice) deep and rough, and often sounding unfriendly
- (of a person’s behaviour) impatient and unfriendly
- Beneath his gruff exterior, he's really very kind-hearted.
Word Originlate 15th cent. (in the sense ‘coarse-grained’): from Flemish and Dutch grof ‘coarse, rude’, of West Germanic origin.
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gruff