Paffen

to smoke (tobacco), to puff 
[verb]
[paf-fen, paf-te, ge-paft]

Paffen ‘Paffen’ is used coloquially for ‘smoking tobacco’, mainly for cigarettes, but it is most likely derived from the sound made with the lips when smoking a pipe.

‘Paffen’ is also informally used for ‘to shoot’ (pistol).

Examples:
– “Heb je wat te paffen?” 
(“Do you have a cig/fag for me?”)

– “Zo, er wordt stevig gepaft hier, het staat helemaal blauw!” 
(“My, heavy smokers in here, it’s completely blue (with smoke).” Lit.:”…, there’s severe puffing in here…”)

– “De vader van Jeanette paft er op los, het zou mij niks verbazen als hij eerder de pijp uitgaat.” 
(“Jeanette’s father smokes one after the other, it wouldn’t suprise me at all if he dies at an early age.” Note the construct ‘er op los [verb]’: ‘to [verb] excessively’. The expression ‘de pijp uitgaan’ is a colloquialism for ‘to die’ and refers to cremation (smoke that exits the chimney/pipe). It sounds macabre but it’s a perfectly normal expression (although informal!).)

Expressions:
– “Roken als een ketter”: to smoke like a chimney(stack). Note that a ‘ketter’ is a ‘heretic’. We also use ‘zuipen als een ketter’ (‘to drink excessively’, ‘to drink like a fish’).

Related words:
– Roken: to smoke [verb] [rookte, gerookt].
– Schoorsteen: chimney [noun] [de schoorsteen, de schoorstenen].
– Schieten: to shoot [verb] [schoot, geschoten].

Extra:
The noun ‘pafke’ is also used for ‘cig/fag’. It’s dialect, probably from Groningen, but became widely accepted in the 80s because of its usage in the satirical TV show ‘Pisa‘, with hosts Harry Vermeegen and Henk Spaan. The phrase “tiet veur ‘un pafke” means “tijd voor een sigaretje”: time for a cig! You may hear this phrase, but most likely only amongst those who’ve actually watched ‘Pisa’, or are from Groningen 😉