pifiar

Catalan

Etymology

From Spanish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [pi.fiˈa]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [pi.fiˈaɾ]
• Homophone: pifià
• Rhymes: -a(ɾ)

Verb

pifiar (first-person singular present pifio, first-person singular preterite pifií, past participle pifiat)

1. (intransitive) to mess up

   Synonym: espifiar

Further reading

• “pifiar”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “pifiar” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “pifiar” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

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Spanish

FWOTD – 12 October 2018

Etymology

From Middle High German pfīfen (modern German pfeifen (“to whistle”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /piˈfjaɾ/ [piˈfjaɾ]

Verb

1. (intransitive) to drop the ball, screw up, mess up

   Pifié en la primera nota. ― I screwed up the very first note.

2. (transitive, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru) to boo
3. (transitive, Bolivia, Peru) to mock, dig, make fun of
4. (transitive, Mexico) to nick, rob
   • 2016, Juan Cadavid, El envenenador de Tarragona, Punto Rojo, →ISBN, page 236.

     Su madre era una buena mujer, pero había vivido esclavizada por las drogas y por su marido, que no tenía la hombría de salir cada día a rebuscar el dinero para sus vicios, sino que le ordenaba a ella que se acostara con hombres para luego pifiar todo su dinero.

     His mother was a good woman but she had lived enslaved to drugs and her husband, who didn't have the manhood to leave the house each day to seek after the money for his his vices but ordered her to lay with men so that later he could nick all their money.

5. (intransitive, music) to blow across a flute or other reedless woodwind instrument

Related terms

• pifia

Further reading

• Template:R:DRAE 2001