[f. WHIFFLE v.1 + -ING2.]
1. That whiffles; blowing, or blown, in light puffs; moving lightly as if driven by gusts of wind.
1568. T. Howell, Arb. Amitie (1879), 68. Vphoyst by wyffling windes.
1660. Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur., II. (1682), 205. The whiffling dust which flies in the faces of Travellers.
1685. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), III. 135. No raine fell from the 26 Jan. …, only a little whiffling snow.
1713. Rowe, Jane Shore, IV. i. Like a dry leaf, an idle straw, a feather, The Sport of every whifling Blast that blows.
1765. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, VII. xvi. Those whiffling vexations which come puffing across a man’s canvas.
1800. Hurdis, Fav. Village, 32. The whiffling breeze … among the bents.
1845. S. Judd, Margaret, xvii. Where the whiffling winds had left the earth nearly bare [of snow].
b. Making or characterized by a light whistling sound.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. iv. Some whiffling husky cachinnation.
1911. Galsworthy, Patrician, xix. Rain, which the wind drove horizontally with a cold whiffling murmur.
2. Inconstant, shifting; evasive.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 109. This puts him upon perpetual Apologies … in a Kind of whiffling Strain.
1741. Watts, Improv. Mind, ix. (1801), 79. A person of a whiffling and unsteady turn of mind, who cannot keep close to a point of controversy, but wanders from it perpetually.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Proc. E. Ind. Ho., 139/1. That it should be got rid of by the whiffling way of an adjournment.
1818. Hazlitt, Pol. Ess. (1819), 343. A whiffling turncoat.
1835. W. Irving, Tour Prairies, iv. Hee had … a whiffling double voice, shifting abruptly from a treble to a thorough-bass.
1856. Emerson, Engl. Traits, viii. 143. The national temper, in the civil history, is not flashy or whiffling.
1914. E. J. Dillon, in Contemp. Rev., Sept., 323. The whiffling and unsteady frame of mind of the Imperial workman.
3. Trifling, pettifogging, fiddling, fussy; (passing into) paltry, insignificant, ‘piffling.’
1613. Hoby, Counter-snarle, 3. Some vile blurr, and maleuolous aspersion, from one or other her suborned Pandars and whifling agents.
1671. Crowne, Juliana, I. 8. A pittiful whiffling small-beer Duke.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. 847. A meer Whifling, Evanid, and Phantastick thing.
1710. Brit. Apollo, III. No. 7. 3/1. Whiffling, Noisy Whelp apace Barks.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), IV. 107. The whiffling Gallants of the Inns of Court, Do hinder their Studies certainly.
1817. Hazlitt, Times Newsp., Wks. 1902, III. 171. The low, whiffling, contemptible gratification of their literary jealousy.
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., Whifling, slight, slender, insignificant. ‘A little whiffling fellow.’
1903. R. Bridges, To a Socialist in Lond., 111. The least petty whiffling ephemeral insect.
Hence Whiffingly adv., in a trifling manner.
1668. H. More, Div. Dial., II. 482. All the Articles of our Faith … might be most frivolously and whifflingly allegorized into a mere … Fable.
Whiffling ppl. a.2: see WHIFFLING vbl. sb.
