piffle
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
has piffledperfect 3rd person singular
-
have piffledperfect
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have been pifflingperfect progressive
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is pifflingprogressive 3rd person singular
-
has been pifflingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
-
am pifflingprogressive 1st person singular
-
pifflingparticiple
-
pifflessingular 3rd person
-
are pifflingprogressive
Past
-
had piffledperfect
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was pifflingprogressive singular
-
piffledparticiple
-
were pifflingprogressive plural
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had been pifflingperfect progressive
-
piffledsimple
Future
Etymology
Origin of piffle
First recorded in 1840–50; perhaps akin to puff
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I defy you to tell me what this blithering piffle actually means.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025
In retrospect, was Blinken’s vision of music as a vehicle of global transformation a blip and a piffle, a charmingly naïve indulgence?
From Slate • Dec. 28, 2023
Past administration GPRs, he added, “typically gush strategic-sounding piffle, exhausting readers with laborious defenses of the status quo. This one at least spared us that.”
From Washington Times • Nov. 30, 2021
If you don’t look closely, or are in a reactive state of mind, it’s easy enough to write off the show as Cold War piffle, even propaganda for a world of bland “normalcy.”
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 27, 2019
No heckling social restrictions, no vapid idle piffle at dull teas; no lugubrious pretence of burdensome duties.
From The Desert Fiddler by Hamby, William H. (William Henry)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
