CULTURETECHLENScuffing season
VERIFIED evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)
Combined Graph record U-00853 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-W-0452. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.
Merriam-Webster wordplay explainer (published 2020-02-11, fetched in full): cuffing season is the time of year when cold weather starts and single people actively search for romantic partners to ride out the colder months, typically October through March, culminating with Valentine's Day; 'cuffs' allude to handcuffs, i.e., being connected/tied to another person; 'The earliest recorded print uses of cuffing season date from college newspapers in 2011, with cuff preceding that as a verb with origins in African-American vernacular as something close in meaning to hook up'; Fabolous's 2013 song title helped popularize it; the March 2026 dictionary entry glosses it as 'a time of the year when people who are not married or in a relationship begin looking for a short-term romantic partner to spend the colder months of the year with.' Stored meaning 'fall and winter partnering season' and era '2010s' supported.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Merriam-Webster wordplay explainer (published 2020-02-11, fetched in full): cuffing season is the time of year when cold weather starts and single people actively search for romantic partners to ride out the colder months, typically October through March, culminating with Valentine's Day; 'cuffs' allude to handcuffs, i.e., being connected/tied to another person; 'The earliest recorded print uses of cuffing season date from college newspapers in 2011, with cuff preceding that as a verb with origins in African-American vernacular as something close
The record
- Work type: phrase
Sources
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/cuffing-season-meaning-origin (verification source · master store)
Evidence note (master store)
Merriam-Webster wordplay explainer (published 2020-02-11, fetched in full): cuffing season is the time of year when cold weather starts and single people actively search for romantic partners to ride out the colder months, typically October through March, culminating with Valentine's Day; 'cuffs' allude to handcuffs, i.e., being connected/tied to another person; 'The earliest recorded print uses of cuffing season date from college newspapers in 2011, with cuff preceding that as a verb with origins in African-American vernacular as something close in meaning to hook up'; Fabolous's 2013 song title helped popularize it; the March 2026 dictionary entry glosses it as 'a time of the year when people who are not married or in a relationship begin looking for a short-term romantic partner to spend the colder months of the year with.' Stored meaning 'fall and winter partnering season' and era '2010s' supported.
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Record CTL-W-0452 · Combined Graph record U-00853 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 1 source.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
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Chicago: CultureTechLens. “cuffing season (CTL-W-0452).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-w-0452/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). cuffing season (CTL-W-0452) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-w-0452/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “cuffing season (CTL-W-0452).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-w-0452/
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