Definition of "duffer"

duffer

/ˈdʌfɚ/

adjective
1. comparative form of duff: more duff
noun
plural duffers
1. (informal) An incompetent, indolent, or clumsy person.
  Quotations
  Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business.
  1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part II
2. (sports) A player having little skill, especially a golfer who duffs.
3. (archaic) A pedlar or hawker, especially one selling cheap or substandard goods.
4. (archaic) Cheap or substandard goods sold by a duffer.
5. (archaic) Anything substandard, such as a bad painting.
6. A cow that does not produce milk.
  Quotations
  We have some good cows in this State, but, unfortunately, we have too many duffer cows that are not only being fed and milked at a loss hut are eating up a portion of the profit of the good cow which is being milked alongside them.
  1908, Proceedings of the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago, volume 8, page 116
  The truth is that cattlemen love a typical cow for her beauty and symmetry of form ; but every herd-testing dairyman knows that an ugly animal may be a good producer, while many a beautiful cow is a duffer.
  1934, Victorian Department of Agriculture, Journal of Agriculture, volume 32, page 293
7. (Australia, dated) A cattle thief or thief of other livestock; one who alters the brands of cattle.
  Quotations
  Judy was an associate (‘stud’) of a Whitefella cattle duffer named Brigalow Bill (aka WJJ Ward).
  2004, Deborah Bird Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation‎, page 112
  2005 February 2, “Alleged sheep duffer charged”, in The Northern Daily Leader‎
  In the mid-1860s a duffer named James Harnell, who went by the nickname Narran Jim, had taken stock he′d stolen from the district around Culgoa and Narran rivers across Queensland to the Cooper. […] An alert Bulloo Downs stockman contacted the police, and when Police Inspector Fitzgerald and eight Aboriginal troopers tracked Narran Jim and surrounded him while he was sleeping, the cattle duffer woke to find himself looking down the barrel of Fitzgerald′s revolver and seven years in jail.
  2010, Evan McHugh, The Drovers
  The cattle duffer′s escape would have been impeded by those young ones. Calves can be unruly unless you move them carefully in the company of their mothers.
  2011, Clancy Tucker, Gunnedah Hero, unnumbered page
  His book-sized Electronic Shepherd prototype is sensitive enough to hear a sheep bleating, a dog barking, a whistle or human command, or even the vehicle or mustering dogs of a potential sheep duffer.
  2015 March 11, Terry Sim, “Greg’s Electronic Shepherd will hear dogs and sheep duffers coming 24/7”, in Sheep Central‎
8. A racing pigeon that does not perform well.
9. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Discophora.