riff
/ɹɪf/
riff noun: a repeated melody line in a song, usually instrumental but sometimes vocal.
Noun (1)
riff (plural riffs)
- A repeated melody line in a song, usually instrumental but sometimes vocal.
- Listen to one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time!
- Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child has been named the greatest guitar riff of all time, 41 years after it was recorded, in a poll by website Music Radar.2009 November 27, “Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child has 'best guitar riff'”, in BBC
- A clever or witty remark.
- Pope Francis delivers off-the-cuff riff on family life2015 September 27, “Pope Francis delivers off-the-cuff riff on family life”, in USA Today
- A variation on something.
- Both the Orbit and the Pinnacle are riffs on an idea sketched out in 1917 by Vladimir Tatlin for a monument to international communism.2012, The Economist, London Skyline: Tower Power
- Grok’s companions are a riff on the idea of AI assistants or agents, which some people use for friendship or romance in place of or in addition to human partners.2025 July 16, David Ingram, “Musk's Grok 'companions' include a flirty anime character and an anti-religion panda”, in NBC News
- A spoof.
- The creative team has experience with spoofing: Both [Paul] Rudd and [Amy] Poehler had parts in [David] Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer, a hysterically irreverent riff on ’80s summer-camp comedies.2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2017
Verb
riff (third-person singular simple present riffs, present participle riffing, simple past and past participle riffed)
- To improvise in the performance or practice of an art, especially by expanding on or making novel use of traditional themes.
- She riffed on the Olympic judges, the bobsled team, then ad-libbed with a woman drinking a martini at the front table.2006, Janet Tashjian, Fault Line: A Novel, →ISBN
- They were great architects deeply enmeshed in an urban chain of innovation; Wright riffed on Sullivan's idea of form following function, and Sullivan riffed on Jenney, and Jenney relied on the fireproofing innovations of Peter B. Wight.2011, Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City, →ISBN
- To riffle.
- He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wellworn deck of cards. He hated Saturday duty. He cut the deck and riffed the two halves together.2010, Michael Flynn, In the Country of the Blind, →ISBN
- He was gracious enough to thank her, and briefly riffed through the pages before putting it in his briefcase.2012, Jane Roberts, Triple Challenge: '69 to '70, →ISBN, page 173
- To tell jokes over a movie or similar performance.
- Most MSTers confine their "riffing" to original fan fiction rather than scripts from corporate-owned entertainment properties, which renders such twice-removed MSTing somewhat toothless: the cannibalizing parody of a pastiche.2014 January 10, Robert G. Weiner, Shelley E. Barba, In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology and the Culture of Riffing, McFarland, →ISBN, page 126
- A bad sci-fi movie is often ludicrous and silly and ripe for riffing. A bad comedy is usually just dull.2015 January 27, Chris Morgan, The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon, McFarland, →ISBN, page 34
- Synonyms:
- MST
Noun (2)
riff (plural riffs)
Proper noun (1) capitalized: RIFF
RIFF
- Acronym of Resource Interchange File Format.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Riff
Riff
- Alternative form of Rif (“mountains in Morocco”).
riff meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam
riff in Hindi
- रिफ़
riff in Tamil
- ரிஃப்
riff in Telugu
- రిఫ్
riff in Malayalam
- റിഫ്
More languagesFewer languages
- riff in Kannada
- ರಿಫ್
- riff in Punjabi
- ਰਿੱਫ
- riff in Odia
- ରିଫ୍
Examples of riff in a sentence
- For Holyoake a strategic advantage of his newly coined label was the way it riffed on the term 'secular' in the Western Christian imaginary.2014, Johann P. Arnason, Religion and Politics: European and Global Perspectives, →ISBN, page 59:
- He riffed an upward arpeggio and in a smooth, slightly neutered baritone began singing “Baby Face.”2014, Edward Stewart, Privileged Lives, →ISBN:
Synonyms of riff
Forms of riff
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | riffs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | riffs |
| present participle | riffing |
| past participle | riffed |
| past | riffed |
Origin of riff
Uncertain. Perhaps a clipping of riffle, or an alteration of refrain.
From Middle English *rif (found only in midrif), from Old English hrif (“the belly; womb”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrif, from Proto-Germanic *hrefaz (“body; torso; belly”), from Proto-Indo-European *krep- (“body”). Distant doublet of corpus, corpse, and corse.
Words formed from riff
Words that rhyme with riff
Questions about riff
- What does riff mean?
- Riff means a repeated melody line in a song, usually instrumental but sometimes vocal.
- What is riff in Hindi?
- Riff in Hindi is रिफ़. See Riff meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use riff in a sentence?
- For Holyoake a strategic advantage of his newly coined label was the way it riffed on the term 'secular' in the Western Christian imaginary.
- What part of speech is riff?
- Riff can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce riff?
- Riff is pronounced /ɹɪf/.
- What is the plural of riff?
- The plural of riff is riffs.
Words near riff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: riff (page history and authors); RIFF (page history and authors); Riff (page history and authors); riff (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); riff (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); riff (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); riff (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); riff (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); riff (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); riff (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-riff.wav.
Cite this entry: “riff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/riff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.