Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To blow in light gusts; puff.
- intransitive verb To move lightly or erratically.
- intransitive verb To make a light whistling noise.
- intransitive verb To blow, displace, or scatter with gusts of air.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A fife.
- To blow in gusts; hence, to veer about, as the wind.
- To change from one opinion or course to another; use evasions; prevaricate; be fickle or unsteady; waver.
- To trifle; talk idly.
- To disperse with a puff; blow away; scatter.
- To cause to change, as from one opinion or course to another.
- To shake or wave quickly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To waver, or shake, as if moved by gusts of wind; to shift, turn, or veer about.
- intransitive verb To change from one opinion or course to another; to use evasions; to prevaricate; to be fickle.
- transitive verb obsolete To disperse with, or as with, a whiff, or puff; to scatter.
- transitive verb To wave or shake quickly; to cause to whiffle.
- noun obsolete A fife or small flute.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A short
blow orgust - noun obsolete Something small or insignificant; a
trifle . - noun obsolete A fife or small flute.
- verb to
blow a short gust - verb to
waffle , talk aimlessly - verb UK to waste time
- verb to travel quickly,
whizz ,whistle , with an accompanying wind-like sound - verb ornithology, of a bird to descending rapidly from a height once the decision to land has been made, involving fast side-slipping first one way and then the other
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Look for a reel with a lightweight, so-called "whiffle" spool, a perforated design that has holes like a Wiffle ball.
Two New Casting Styles From Field & Stream's John Merwin 2005
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When his father asked him what they should call the ball, he said "whiffle," for the slang word "whiff," meaning "strike out."
The Wiffle Effect 2002
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When his father asked him what they should call the ball, he said "whiffle," for the slang word "whiff," meaning "strike out."
The Wiffle Effect 2002
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Nobody can use his fists without being taught the use of them by those who have themselves been taught, no more than any one can "whiffle" without being taught by a master of the art.
The Romany Rye George Henry Borrow 1842
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Nobody can use his fists without being taught the use of them by those who have themselves been taught, no more than anyone can 'whiffle' {355} without being taught by a master of the art.
The Romany Rye A Sequel to 'Lavengro' George Henry Borrow 1842
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It comes as a faint shock to realize that words in everyday use (at least on this side of the Atlantic) such as whiffle, galumph, burble, and chortle, were invented by him in "Jabberwocky" (and glossed by him as "portmanteau" words -- a term that has also passed into accepted usage).
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They could just play whiffle ball and eat ham sandwiches for awhile, and then one day theyd wake up adults.
A Conversation with Karen Russell author of St. Lucys Home for Girls Raised by Wolves 2010
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There are other significant toys I would put up against Premo's whiffle ball any day.
Red Room: Fran Moreland Johns: Your Stuff as 'Art' Red Room 2011
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There are other significant toys I would put up against Premo's whiffle ball any day.
Red Room: Fran Moreland Johns: Your Stuff as 'Art' Red Room 2011
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It's a quirky, wristy, vertical and extremely violent motion that he hasn't fiddled with much since he figured out how to make whiffle balls curve in both directions around his boyhood home in rural Florida.
Top Pros Who've Never Had a Lesson John Paul Newport 2011
bilby commented on the word whiffle
I did not realise until today that -le was a frequentive suffix.
October 3, 2019
ruzuzu commented on the word whiffle
"from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
1662, in sense “flutter as blown by wind”, as whiff + -le (“(frequentive)”) and (onomatopoeia) sound of wind, particularly a leaf fluttering in unsteady wind; compare whiff. Sense “something small or insignificant” is from 1680."
October 4, 2019