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skiffle

noun

  1. genre of folk music with jazz, blues, folk, and roots influences
L327868 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈskɪf.əl/

noun

Etymology: From or related to Scots skiffle, from skiff (whence English skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”), which see for more). Related to skift (“light dusting of snow”).

  1. Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”).

    “For quotations using this term, see Citations:skiffle.”

    “This is when hardy divers such as American mergansers, goldeneyes, buffleheads, and scaup pay my lake a late staging visit, bobbing on the last patches of open water against the season's first skiffles of snow. Gradually the nights get [colder].”

verb

Etymology: From or related to Scots skiffle, from skiff (whence English skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”), which see for more). Related to skift (“light dusting of snow”).

  1. To move in a way that stirs up and moves anything loose lying on the surface.

    “As I am sitting at the stoplight under the maple and oak and cedar trees I see three tiny kids skiffling and shuffling and skittering and scuffling In the leaves”

    “He shakes his head in puzzlement and bends for the suitcases, his Salvation Army shoes encased in plastic bread bags for protection skiffling in the gravel as he resumes his pilgrimage, this rabbit-faced disciple of the Lord, his little grey teeth overhanging his thin lower lip.”