whiffle
Americanverb (used without object)
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to blow in light or shifting gusts or puffs, as the wind; veer or toss about irregularly.
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to shift about; vacillate; be fickle.
verb (used with object)
verb
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(intr) to think or behave in an erratic or unpredictable way
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to blow or be blown fitfully or in gusts
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(intr) to whistle softly
Etymology
Origin of whiffle
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.
See Examples For:
Especially in the first season, we played whiffle ball a bunch and we would just go grab dinner whenever we could.
From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2023
Pickleball is played with a paddle and a plastic ball similar to a whiffle ball.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2022
Although, she does have a knack for tossing those little whiffle balls into the most unreachable places possible.
From Golf Digest ● Jan. 14, 2020
When my son was 3, we signed him up for a whiffle ball team at our local park.
From Slate ● Dec. 10, 2019
Between them there was but just room to drive—in fact the delicate points of the whiffle tree scratched the polished surfaces of them on either hand.
From The Adventures of Bobby Orde by Brehm, Worth
If Yale has whiffled about at this late hour it will show reprehensible weakness and lack of policy.
From Frank Merriwell's Races by Standish, Burt L.
Then the snow Whirled all about—dense, multitudinous, cold— Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek, Which whiffled out men's tears, defeated, took hold, Flattening the flying drift against the cheek.
From Modern British Poetry by Untermeyer, Louis
"King," said Sanders—he carried in his hand a rattan cane of familiar shape, and as he spoke he whiffled it in the air, making a little humming noise—"stand up!"
From Sanders of the River by Wallace, Edgar
Some were merely hunting country, and were ready to be whiffled off toward any neck of the woods which might be puffed up by a wayside acquaintance as ignorant about it as he.
From Vandemark's Folly by Quick, Herbert
That night I watched the poppling brew, With bended back and hand on knee: I stirred it till the dawnlight grew, And the wind whiffled wailfully.
From Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses by Hardy, Thomas
When she tries to laugh she makes “a whiffling sound” that disgusts her.
From Economist ● Feb. 19, 2015
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgy wood, And burbled as he came!
From Time Magazine Archive
He delivers the laughs, but they can't drown out a good deal of creaking, clanking and whiffling.
From Time Magazine Archive
The horses were stamping and whiffling at the edge of the clearing.
From "The Reader" by Traci Chee
‘But the others will be whiffling off to all sorts of flungaway places like Wellington for the booty flavour and Panama for the hatty taste. Every giant is having his own favourite hunting ground.’
From "The BFG" by Roald Dahl
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.
