rifflen.
/ˈrɪfl/, U.S. /ˈrɪf(ə)l/ I. British regional.† 1. Scottish. An act of rubbing or scratching. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > touch and feeling > touching > scratching > [noun] > act of
riffle1664
scratch1861
1664 Rutherford's Joshua Redivivus i. cxciii. 375 When my wounds are closing, a little rifle causeth them to bleed afresh.
2. English regional (Cornwall). A tear or fissure in a roof.
ΚΠ
1880 M. A. Courtney W. Cornwall Words in M. A. Courtney & T. Q. Couch Gloss. Words Cornwall Riffle, a break in a roof made by a strong wind carrying away the slates or thatch.
II. Originally and chiefly North American.† 6. A bar fixed transversely in a fish ladder in order to enable fish to ascend a waterfall or dam. Obsolete. rare.
3. † a. A rocky obstruction in the bed of a river. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > water > body of water > channel of water > [noun] > obstruction in
estoppel1607
riffle1785
1785 R. Butler Jrnl. 5 Oct. in Olden Time (1847) Oct. 440 Met riffles, all very shallow, struck with the barge several times.
b. A stretch of (usually shallow) water in a river where the surface is agitated by its passage over rocks, sandbars, or other obstructions. Also: a rapid.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > water > rivers and streams > system > [noun] > rapids
white water1482
sault1600
shoota1609
stickle1616
swift1661
rift1727
rapid1744
rattle1770
rip1775
riffle1865
spate1884
1792 Survey in Amer. Speech (1940) 15 383 Thence..to a hickory by a riffle in the river.
1833 H. Martineau Briery Creek i. 11 The riffle of the Creek, or the shallows formed by the unevenness of its rocky bottom.
1865 Visct. Milton & W. B. Cheadle N.-W. Passage by Land 379 A little below Quesnelle Mouth is a rather dangerous ‘riffle’, or rapid, of lumpy water.
1902 Sunset June 120/2 There is a long stretch of quiet water..interrupted by riffle No. 9... This is a fine riffle, almost a rapid and will add to your skill in boat management.
1948 Sat. Evening Post 23 Oct. 36/2 In the lingo of our Rogue River guides, a riffle is anything between a foaming cataract and white-water rapids heavily sprinkled with boulders.
1962 M. E. Murie Two in Far North ii. vi. 153 In the course of the morning we fought our way over six riffles.
1976 Nature 5 Aug. 483/1 Other research workers have noted that the spacing of riffles in straight and meandering channels is between five and seven channel widths and that skew shoals in flumes have been found to be 6.5 channel widths apart.
2002 Fly Fisherman Feb. 60/1 Benhart and the East Gallatin have sharp drops from shallow riffles to deep holes.
c. A ripple; a ruffle. Also in extended use.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > water > flow or flowing > wave > types of waves > [noun] > small wave or ripple
wrinkle1633
ruffle1655
curl1766
ripple1785
ripplet1805
wavelet1813
pirl1817
wimple1845
riffle1925
ankle-slapper1991
1893 Union Pacific Employes' Mag. June 159/1 The financial crashes throughout the world caused a riffle here this week in an excited ‘run’ on one of the savings banks.
1909 C. H. Hitchcock Hawaii & its Volcanoes iii. 174 The riffle of the surface was as well defined as if the lava had suddenly stopped and become indurated before it had time to settle down to horizontality.
1925 G. Herriman Krazy Kat in Seattle Post-Intelligencer 4 Jan. E3/2 The moonbeams in the pond of Oljeto ruffle into a thousand riffles—and the shifting sands of shanto dance to its dizzying din.
1960 J. Stroud Shorn Lamb ii. 17 I had one sensational glimpse of a long white leg and a riffle of white underwear.
2006 C. McCann Zoli 138 A riffle of whispers went around the tent.
4. Originally Mining (chiefly in gold-washing). Any of various contrivances or devices (such as grooves, bars, or slats) on the bottom of a sluice or similar apparatus, which break a flow of fluid or allow a stream of particles to be sorted and separated by size or weight. See also Compounds 1.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > equipment > conveyor > [noun] > conduit, channel, or tube > device for restricting flow
riffle1848
restrictor1881
baffle-plate1882
riffling1883
society > occupation and work > equipment > equipment for treating ores > [noun] > for washing ore > for gold > part of sluice
riffle1848
ripple1853
sluice-box1857
1848 M. Tuomey Rep. Geol. South Carolina vii. 280 C is a perforated plate of sheet iron, the holes about half an inch in diameter, through which the finer parts fall into the riffle-box.
1865 M. Macfie Vancouver & Brit. Columbia 268 Along the bottom of the rocker riffles or cleets are arranged to arrest the gold. (Note. These are strips of wood or metal arranged after the manner of a Venetian blind.)
1876 Encycl. Brit. IV. 702/1 The detritus..leaves its auriferous particles in the ‘rifles’, which are chinks or cavities between the bars of blocks of wood or stone with which the bottom of the sluice is lined.
1916 Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers 1915 51 405 During the past three years there has been developed at Morenci a new type or arrangement of riffles.
1939 A. M. Gaudin Princ. Mineral Dressing xiii. 298 Riffles are of great importance to tabling. They are responsible for the increased capacity of riffled decks over smooth ones.
1964 F. Chichester Lonely Sea & Sky v. 48 We shovelled the gravel into long boxes with ‘riffles’, small pieces of wood across them, which stopped the heavy gold when the pay dirt was washed through the box by the river.
1998 J. Klein Gold Rush! viii. 62 When you can see a large build-up of black sand on your riffles it's time to clean out your sluice box.
5.
a. A method of shuffling a deck of playing cards by dividing it into two parts and bending the edges or backs before releasing them so that they interleave into one stack. More fully riffle shuffle.In quot. 1862: the action of bending the cards in order to shuffle them.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > entertainment > pastimes > game > card game > [noun] > actions or tactics > dealing, cutting, or shuffling
shuffling1579
deal1607
shuffle1651
lifting1674
cut1729
misdeal1797
riffle1862
ruffle1872
long deal1893
handout1904
1861 Southern Literary Messenger Jan. 42/2 The foppish dealer who was shuffling the cards with great exactness. ‘Only in for a slight riffle to-night, Alphonse,’ said Ernest laughing.]
1862 Daily Evening Bull. (San Francisco) 21 Apr. 3/3 The ‘sharp’ gives the cards a riffle and by some hocus-pocus arrangement, the two aces which were supposed to be in different parts of the pack, come out together.
1894 J. N. Maskelyne ‘Sharps & Flats’ 137 The riffle, or butt-in, as it is called in America, is the shuffle in which..the thumbs ‘riffle’, or bend up the corners of the cards.
1902 S. W. Erdnase Artifice, Ruse & Subterfuge at Card Table 20 Many players never used the ‘riffle’, that is shuffling on the table by springing the ends of two packets into each other, though this method is now by far the more prevalent among men who play for money.
1970 K. Roos What did Hattie See? xi. 105 He gave the deck a riffle shuffle, carefully not disturbing the four bottom cards.
1984 N.Y. Times 23 June 34/1 Divide it exactly in half and simulate a perfect riffle shuffle by taking one card in turn from each pile.
2004 L. H. Harper Global Methods Pref. p. xii After Diaconis calculated that it takes seven riffle shuffles to randomize a deck of cards, it became a legal requirement for black jack dealers in Las Vegas.
b. A quick skim or browse; an act of leafing through pages of a book, papers, etc.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > reading > [noun] > skimming or browsing
skimming1711
skipping1824
browsing1836
riffling1909
skim-reading1926
riffle1951
riff1960
1951 Washington Post 7 Jan. b5/1 (headline) A riffle through magazine rack.
1960 Guardian 28 Oct. 6/4 I skimmed the book in a first riffle.
1983 C. Ozick Cannibal Galaxy (1984) 28 He drank up the terrific truth of both passages, the Aramaic and the French, each chosen, as in a lottery, by an idle riffle.
2003 Observer (Nexis) 9 Nov. 54 As far as one can gather from Sex and the City and a brief riffle through The Rules, dating a New Yorker is rather like being at court in pre-Revolutionary Versailles.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > fish-keeping, farming, or breeding > [noun] > other fish-rearing equipment
riffle1872
raceway1877
grille1883
1872 Rep. Commissioners of Fisheries Calif. 6 The fish..will jump through almost any current a distance of four feet, and each riffle gives them a resting place behind which they recover for the next jump.
1890 Cent. Dict. at cited word Riffle, a piece of plank placed transversely in, and fastened to the bottom of, a fish-ladder.
Phrases
to make the riffle: to be successful in an attempt or undertaking. Also occasionally in literal sense: to cross a rapid.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > prosperity > prosper or flourish [verb (intransitive)] > prosper or be successful
speed993
achievec1300
provec1300
edifya1400
chevise14..
exploit1477
cottonc1560
fadge1611
through1675
to make the riffle1853
arrive1889
society > travel > travel by water > [verb (intransitive)] > across
passc1300
transfrete1548
transfleeta1600
transwaft1624
to make the riffle1887
1853 F. A. Buck Let. 31 Dec. in Yankee Trader in Gold Rush (1930) 130 ‘Madam La Marquise’..built a splendid saloon, opened and flourished for about two months but couldn't make the riffle.
1873 ‘M. Twain’ & C. D. Warner Gilded Age xxxi. 279 There's old Balaam, was in the Interior—..he's made the riffle on the Injun; great Injun pacificator and land-dealer.
1887 M. Roberts Western Avernus 202 Fighting the stream at intervals, but ‘making the riffle’, or crossing the rapid.
1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter i. 19 I aint got no business doin' that, but I'll try if I can make the riffle.
1950 Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Okla.) 14 Feb. 8/1 [The] Rexroat girls [were] doing their best trying to win first in the basketball tournament but they couldn't quite make the riffle.
1999 A. Proulx Close Range 51 Had to live on rodeo we couldn't make the riffle, could we, baby?
Compounds
C1. General attributive (chiefly in sense 4), as riffle bed, riffle board, riffle sluice, etc. See also riffle box n. at Compounds 2.
ΚΠ
1854 E. S. Capron Hist Calif. iii. i. 209 This riffle-board has sides about four inches high, and riffles like those in the plank sluice; but placed much nearer to each other.
1877 R. W. Raymond Statistics Mines & Mining 349 About one-half of the ore going through the mill is saved by means of riffle-sluices.
1882 Rep. Precious Metals (U.S. Bureau of Mint) i. 570 The finer particles of dirt and dust being thrown away by the current behind before falling on the riffle-bed.
1909 R. H. Richards Text Bk. Ore Dressing xii. 322 This consists of a triangular prism with equal faces, each of which is a riffle sluice supplied with cross riffle bars and side retaining walls.
1968 R. F. Adams Western Words 250 Riffle bar..Also called riffle, riffle block.
2003 K. Martin Midnight Sun 39 I can build us a sluice box. We'll need wire mesh, stuff for a riffle board, and a two- or three-horse engine for vibration.
C2.
riffle beetle n. any of various small aquatic beetles that live in fast-flowing water and crawl rather than swim; esp. one of the herbivorous family Elmidae.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > invertebrates > phylum Arthropoda > class Insecta > order Coleoptera or beetles and weevils > [noun] > Adephaga (carnivorous beetles) > Hydradephaga (aquatic) > member of (water-beetle)
water beetle1658
riffle beetle1916
1916 J. G. Needham & J. T. Lloyd Life Inland Waters iv. 224 The Riffle beetles (Parnidæ and Amphizoidæ) prefer flowing water. They do not swim, but clamber over the surfaces of logs and stones.
1940 Copeia No. 4. 225 The Coleoptera larvae were the immature forms of the riffle beetle, Elmis sp.
1972 Nature 10 Mar. 60/1 The Elminthidae, or riffle beetles, are a family of freshwater beetles in the superfamily Dryopoidea.
1993 Daily Tel. 20 May 10/8 A colony of riffle beetles, believed extinct since the 1960s, has been found by the River Stour in Dorset.
riffle box n. originally and chiefly Mining = ripple box n. (a) at ripple n.5 Compounds 2.
ΚΠ
1848Riffle-box [see sense 4].
1862 Mining & Smelting Mag. 1 398 When amalgamation is employed, the riffle-boxes may be charged with mercury.
1909 School of Mines Q. July 302 Should anything of promise appear, the riffle box is at once cleaned out in order that the copper sludge may be caught separately for assay.
2000 D. M. Pearsall Paleoethnobotany (ed. 2) iii. 111 Passing a sample once through the riffle box produces two equal splits, which can then be resplit to produce smaller subsamples.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
rifflev.
/ˈrɪfl/, U.S. /ˈrɪf(ə)l/ 1.
a. transitive. Of wind, a storm, etc.: to affect badly or harmfully; spec. (in later use) to strip (a house) of a roof covering; to strip (slates, tiles, etc.) in this way. Cf. rifle v.1 5. rare (English regional (Cornwall) in later use).
ΚΠ
1713 Monitor No. 18. A sudden Storm descends, That, in an Instant, riffles all the Boat, Whose scatter'd Streamers on the Billows float.
1880 M. A. Courtney W. Cornwall Words in M. A. Courtney & T. Q. Couch Gloss. Words Cornwall 47/1 The wind riffled lots of housen last night.
1891 J. H. Pearce Esther Pentreath i. iii The clay-walled cottages..had their reedy coverings ‘riffled’ by almost every gust.
1961 Country Life 13 Apr. 844/1 The strong winds from the Atlantic annually ‘riffle’ the slates on exposed roofs, which accounts for the Cornish custom of grouting the slates in cement.
b. transitive. English regional (Norfolk). To plough lightly. Cf. riffler n.2 rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > breaking up land > ploughing > plough (land) [verb (transitive)] > plough lightly
shoal1670
scratch1697
stirree1742
skirtc1795
skim1799
riffle1804
skim-plough1807
hen-scratch1872
scratch-plough1926
1804 A. Young Gen. View Agric. Norfolk 275 In general, they riffle the second year's lay before harvest at Westwick.
1893 H. T. Cozens-Hardy Broad Norfolk (Eastern Daily Press) (ed. 2) 14 To ‘riffle’, i.e., to disturb the surface with a plough.
c. transitive. U.S. To ruffle in a slight or rippling manner. Also figurative.
ΘΚΠ
the world > movement > motion in specific manner > irregular movement or agitation > agitate [verb (transitive)] > slightly
ruffle1528
riffle1899
1899 Outing July 396/2 A fresh breeze riffled the waters of the West Branch.
1926 Ladies' Home Jrnl. Nov. 228 Even the wail of music from the Palace of Dance barely riffled his preoccupation.
1978 Audubon Sept. 70/1 He turns to confront a sixteen-and-a-half-foot-long canvas on the opposite wall and sees forty eiders, lifesize, whirring across the wintry sea, their blurred wings riffling the trough of a wave.
1994 N. Holder Dead in Water xvii. 211 The wind riffled his hair.
2. intransitive. U.S. Of water: to form a riffle.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > water > rivers and streams > system > [verb (intransitive)] > form a rapid
riffle1754
1754 [implied in: J. Preble in New-Eng. Historical & Geneal. Reg. (1868) XXII. 408 The navigation to Norridgewalk is considerably difficult by the reason of the rapidity of the stream, and riffling falls. (at riffling adj.)].
1804 W. Clark Jrnl. 20 June in Jrnls. Lewis & Clark Exped. (1986) II. 310 A Sand bar..over which the water riffleed and roered like a great fall.
1878 Rep. Chief Signal Office (U.S. House of Representatives) 431 All at once found the water riffling with a very heavy swell.
1947 A. B. Guthrie Big Sky 183 A fish nosed the surface while Boone watched, and the water riffled and lay flat again.
1975 J. Stuart My World 25 Water riffled over rocks, with spray leaping up like flying silverfish in the sun.
2007 W. Martin Lost Constit. 474 The Connecticut River widened quickly here, and white water riffled over the rocks.
3.
a. transitive. To flick through (papers, books, etc.); to thumb (a block of paper, a book, etc.), releasing the leaves in (usually rapid) succession.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > touch and feeling > touching > touching with the hand > touch or feel with the hand [verb (transitive)] > touch or feel with the thumb > carry out specific action
thumb1768
riffle1876
society > communication > reading > [verb (transitive)] > skim or browse or skip
skip1526
launch1570
to run over1577
rufflea1631
leaf1663
to run through1670
to dip into1682
skim1739
thumb-read1825
browse1903
thumb1930
riffle1938
riff1942
skim-read1954
skip-read1977
1876 Johnson's New Universal Cycl. II. 594/1 Every three minutes the book is taken out of its covers and ‘riffled’. Riffling consists in shaking up the leaves, so as to loosen the whole and prevent the gold from clinging to the parchment.
1938 R. Franken Gold Pennies xv. 159 Mrs. Miller glanced at the opening paragraph, and then riffled the pages tentatively.
1957 T. Sturgeon in Galaxy Mar. 40/2 Slim lifted the paper out of the box,..riffled a thumbful of the sheets at the top.
1977 G. Durrell Golden Bats & Pink Pigeons iv. 87 He took my passport and riffled it..like an expert card sharper.
2000 S. King On Writing 244 Most magazine editors can tell how long a story is just by looking at the print and riffling the pages.
b. transitive. To bend or shuffle (playing cards) by means of a riffle shuffle. Cf. riffle n. 5.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > entertainment > pastimes > game > card game > card-sharping or cheating > cheat someone at cards [verb (transitive)] > methods of cheating
pack1575
palm1671
spur1674
slip1807
stack1825
pass1859
stock1864
riffle1891
1891 Manitoba Daily Free Press 10 July 7/2 ‘That's whatever,’ said Rosewood Jim, as he riffled a deck and snapped it in the deal box.
1939 Reader's Digest May 29/1 Pick up and riffle a deck of cards. All you see is a blur of card ends.
1973 ‘J. Ashford’ Double Run iv. 30 Comyns collected up the cards and riffled them into a pack with slow and deliberate movements.
1996 M. Grimes Hotel Paradise 210 She riffled the deck and thought a moment. ‘Ten of spades is wild, didn't I say that?’
c. intransitive. To thumb, leaf, or flick through. Also figurative.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > reading > [verb (intransitive)] > skim or browse
browse1818
to look over ——1855
riffle1919
page1927
skim-read1931
skip-read1977
1919 A. Stringer Man who couldn't Sleep x. 313 His wandering eye peered unsteadily down at the Blue Book as I once more riffled through its pages, from back to front.
1960 V. Nabokov Invitation to Beheading vii. 74 He produced..a thick batch of home snapshots of the smallest size. Riffling through them as through a deck of cards, he began placing them one by one on the table.
1962 Listener 22 Nov. 845/2 I was riffling through these morbid thoughts.
2001 R. Hill Dialogues of Dead (2002) xlv. 493 Pascoe riffled through the pages, letting them open as they would.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1664v.1713