whiff

1. 1.

   perceive by inhaling through the nose

   “sniff the perfume”

   Synonymssniff

   Broadersmell
2. 2.

   drive or carry as if by a puff of air

   “The gust of air whiffed away the clouds”

   Broaderblow
3. 3.

   strike out by swinging and missing the pitch charged as the third

   Broaderstrike out

   baseball

4. 4.

   smoke and exhale strongly

   “puff a cigar”

   “whiff a pipe”

   Synonymspuff

   Broadersmoke
5. 5.

   utter with a puff of air

   “whiff out a prayer”

   Broadertalk

1. 1.

   a short light gust of air

   Synonymspuffpuff of air

   Broadergust
2. 2.

   a lefteye flounder found in coastal waters from New England to Brazil

   Broaderlefteye flounder

   Narrowerhorned whiff

   Part ofCitharichthys
3. 3.

   a strikeout resulting from the batter swinging at and missing the ball for the third strike

   Broaderstrikeout

Other forms of whiff

plural

whiffs·

past tense

whiffed·

present participle

whiffing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about whiff

What does whiff mean?

whiff means "perceive by inhaling through the nose". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in whiff?

whiff has 1 syllable: whiff. In IPA it is /ˈwɪf/.

What is another word for whiff?

Close synonyms include sniff, puff, puff, puff of air. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is whiff a common word?

whiff is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.