The Google etymology thing (I didn't even know it existed - just search for "stuff etymology" and you get a nice little graph) tells me that the word "stuff" came to English from Greek (stuphein) via Old French (estoffe). So maybe it is not correct to say it's not a French-derived word?
But it's also present in German- stoff means something like "material". Amusingly, there's a wikipedia article titled "List of stoffs". The elements have names like Wasserstoff = water stuff = hydrogen. In the attached essay (which claims to be written without German derivatives), it seems strange to prefer "waterstuff" to the very Greek "hydrogen"... ?
But it's also present in German- stoff means something like "material". Amusingly, there's a wikipedia article titled "List of stoffs". The elements have names like Wasserstoff = water stuff = hydrogen. In the attached essay (which claims to be written without German derivatives), it seems strange to prefer "waterstuff" to the very Greek "hydrogen"... ?