Whiff

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪf

Full definition of whiff

Noun

1. A waft; a brief, gentle breeze; a light gust of air
2. An odour carried briefly through the air
• unknown date Ann Coultereveryone has always known, widely promiscuous heterosexual men have, as I say, a whiff of the bathhouse about them.
• 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room Chapter 2A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor...
3. A short inhalation of breath, especially of smoke from a cigarette or pipe
• LongfellowThe skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
  And a scornful laugh laughed he.
4. (figurative) a slight sign of something; a glimpse
• 2012, Ben Smith, Leeds United 2-1 Everton http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19632366This was a rare whiff of the big-time for a club whose staple diet became top-flight football for so long - the glamour was in short supply, however. Thousands of empty seats and the driving Yorkshire rain saw to that.
5. (baseball) A strike (from the batter’s perspective)
6. The megrim, a fish or .

Synonyms

• puff
• sniff
• waft

Verb

1. (transitive) To waft.
2. (transitive) To sniff.
3. (intransitive, baseball) To strike out.
4. (slang) to attempt to strike and miss, especially being off-balance/vulnerable after missing.
5. To throw out in whiffs; to consume in whiffs; to puff.
6. To carry or convey by a whiff, or as by a whiff; to puff or blow away.
• Ben JonsonOld Empedocles, ... who, when he leaped into Etna, having a dry, sear body, and light, the smoke took him, and whiffed him up into the moon.

Adjective

1. (colloquial) Having a strong or unpleasant odor.
• 2002: Jim Rozen, Way oil in rec.crafts.metalworkingWhoo boy that gear oil is pretty whiff. If you actually do this, spend the extra money for the synthetic gear oil as it will not have as bad a sulfur stink as the regular stuff.

Derived terms

• whiffle