[Cf. WEFF, WAFF sb.] Something borne or driven by the wind; a puff (of smoke), a streak (of cloud).
1854. Patmore, Angel in Ho., Betrothal, 18. The sunny wind that … shaped the clouds in waifs and zones.
1879. R. H. Elliot, Written on their Foreheads, xxxiii. II. 1. The first waifs of the hot-weather sea-borne breeze had in the evening begun faintly to fan the topmost heights of the border hills.
1886. Parry, Stud. Gt. Composers, Schubert, 232. Nothing but waifs of cloud and howling of wind.
