skiffle

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /skɪf.əl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪfəl

Etymology 1

Noun

skiffle (uncountable)

1. A type of folk music, with jazz and blues influences, using homemade or improvised instruments.
   • 1943, Negro Digest - Volume 2, page 47:

     The cats and the bats—and I hope you dig that one about the bats—played like mad in the backbeat 12, skiffling and skuffling , trying to get under the wire .

   • 2012, Patrick Humphries, Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock & Roll:

     In Liverpool, the Quarrymen were one group of teenage Donegan admirers, but there were plenty of others: the Martinis, the Raving Texans, the Bluegenes and the Blackjacks—all skiffling their hearts out .

   • 2021, Matt Haskins, What Time Are We On?:

     They've been skiffling as we talked about in last chapter, and can now play a bit so their interests are broadening.

Verb

skiffle (third-person singular simple present skiffles, present participle skiffling, simple past and past participle skiffled)

1. To play skiffle.

Etymology 2

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”).

Noun

skiffle (plural skiffles)

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.
   • 1999, Monte Hummel, Wintergreen: Reflections from Loon Lake:

     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

skiffle (third-person singular simple present skiffles, present participle skiffling, simple past and past participle skiffled)

1. To move in a way that stirs up and moves anything loose lying on the surface.
   • 2016, Brian Doyle, The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be, page 87:

     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

   • 2016, Kyp Harness, Wigford Rememberies:

     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.

   • 2018, Kirsty Logan, The Gloaming:

     Peter set off at a run, his feet skiffling up sand, his muscles cramping , his bones shrieking .

   • 2020, Sasha Lauren, The Paris Predicament, page 193:

     Shame blew through me in circles like a typhoon over Lake Tanganyika, skiffling the cool , calm waters into tidal waves .