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shuffle

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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Originally the same word as scuffle, and properly a frequentative of shove.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈʃʌfəl/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʌfəl

Noun

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shuffle (plural shuffles)

  1. The act of mixing cards or mah-jong tiles so as to randomize them.
    He made a real mess of the last shuffle.
  2. The act of reordering anything, such as music tracks in a media player.
  3. An instance of walking without lifting one's feet.
    The sad young girl left with a tired shuffle.
  4. (by extension, music) A rhythm commonly used in blues music, consisting of a series of triplet notes with the middle note missing, so that it sounds like a long note followed by a short note, and suggests a walker dragging one foot.
  5. (dance) A dance move in which the foot is scuffed back and forth across the floor.
  6. A trick; an artifice; an evasion.

Quotations

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  • 1995, Mel Kernahan, White savages in the South Seas, Verso, page 113:
    As I lay there listening to the strange night sounds, I hear the shuffle of someone creeping by outside in the grass.
  • 2003, Edmund G. Bansak, Robert Wise, Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career, McFarland, page 394:
    She has a crippled leg, and every time she walks we hear the shuffle of her crinoline skirt and the thumping of her cane.
  • 2008, Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, Pan Macmillan Australia, page 148:
    Around her, she could hear the shuffle of her own hands, disturbing the shelves.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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shuffle (third-person singular simple present shuffles, present participle shuffling, simple past and past participle shuffled)

  1. (ambitransitive) To put in a random order.
    Don't forget to shuffle the cards.
    You shuffle, and I'll deal.
    The data packets are shuffled before transmission.
    I'm going to shuffle all the songs in my playlist.
    • 2015, Abra S.W., A Circus of Brass and Bone‎[1], Bimulous Books:
      Behind her, she heard the flutter of cards being shuffled back into the pack.
  2. To change; modify the order of something.
    • 2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 – 2 Fulham”, in BBC Sport‎[2]:
      But, rather than make a change up front, Hughes shuffled his defence for this match, replacing Carlos Salcido with Baird, in a move which few would have predicted would prove decisive.
  3. (ambitransitive) To move in a slovenly, dragging manner; to drag or scrape the feet in walking or dancing.
    He shuffled out of the room.
    I shuffled my feet in embarrassment.
    • 1819, John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza XI, page 88:
      [T]he aged creature came, / Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand, […]
    • 1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 4, in The Subtle Minotaur‎[3]:
      Even when the other instruments were resting the pianist kept up his monotonous vamping, with a dreary furbelow for embellishment here and there, to which some few of the dancers continued to shuffle round the floor.
    • 1973, “Piano Man”, Billy Joel (music):
      The regular crowd shuffles in
  4. To change one's position; to shift ground; to evade questions; to resort to equivocation; to prevaricate.
  5. To use arts or expedients; to make shift.
  6. To shove one way and the other; to push from one to another.
    to shuffle money from hand to hand
  7. To remove or introduce by artificial confusion.
    • 1682, [John Dryden], “Epistle to the Whigs”, in The Medall. A Satyre Against Sedition. […], Edinburgh: [s.n.], →OCLC:
      Therefore you do vvell to have recourſe to your laſt Evaſion, that it vvas contriv'd by your Enemies, and ſhuffled into the Papers that vvere ſeiz'd: vvhich yet you ſee the Nation is not ſo eaſy to believe as your ovvn Fury; […]

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Norwegian Bokmål

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Etymology

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From English shuffle.

Verb

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shuffle (present tense shuffler, simple past and past participle shufflet)

  1. to shuffle (including dancing the shuffle, playing shuffleboard)

References

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