1819. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. Muff, an epithet synonymous with mouth.
Ibid. s.v. Mouth, a foolish silly person.
Verb. (common).—1. To bungle: e.g., to muff a catch.
1857. G. H. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, vi. I don’t see why you
should have muffed that shot.
2. (Eton College).—To fail in an examination; to be spun (q.v.) or
plucked (q.v.); to skip a cog (q.v.).
1884. Julian Sturgis, in Longm. Mag., III. 617. Freddy and Tommy
and Dicky have all muffed for the army. It’s really dreadful!
Muffin, subs. (American).—1. See quot.
1870. John White, Sketches from America [Bartlett]. When a man,
availing himself of the custom of the country, has secured a young
lady for the season, to share with him his sleigh-driving and other
of the national amusements, in Canadian phrase she is called his
muffin. Her status is a sort of temporary wifehood, limited, of
course, by many obvious restrictions, but resembling wifehood in
this, that, though a close and continuous relationship, it has
nothing in it which shocks, and much in it which allures, the
Canadian mind. Among the British commodities exported to our
colonies, ‘la pruderie Anglaise’ does not find a place. The origin
of the term muffin seems to be wrapped in obscurity.