A stuffed animal describes a toy animal stuffed with straw, beans, cotton, and other similar materials. Some stuffed animals are very old – home made cloth dolls stuffed with straw go back to at least the 1830s, perhaps much older.
Stuffed animals in the past were frequently produced by stuffing the evacuated skins of hunted animals. The phrase is still sometimes used to refer to examples of Taxidermy. However, with modern technology it is now possible to produce them with synthetic materials. For this reason, a plush toy or plushie may be a more appropriate name for a modern synthetic stuffed animal.
The first commercial concern to create stuffed toys is apparently the Steiff company that was founded in 1880 in Germany. In some parts of Germany, stuffed animals are informally referred to in German as Steiftiere, which derives from the name of that company; however, this is largely unknown to casual German speakers today because steif also means stiff, which is also why the word lost the second f.
One of the most popular types of stuffed animal is the teddy bear. Another is the sock monkey.
A popular commercial brand of stuffed animals is Ty Beanie Babies. (via Wikipedia)
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