shuffling

/ˈʃʌfl̩ɪŋ/

shuffling is the present participle and gerund of shuffle.

Noun

shuffling (plural shufflings)

The act or motion of one who shuffles.
- As I lay waiting I could hear a sort of murmurousness beyond the door. It seemed composed of whimperings, slitherings, and shufflings, punctuated occasionally by a raised voice in the distance.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 14
- Jane Gibson taught the cast the movements of the various creatures they were representing: the linear shufflings of the hedgehogs, the dozy lollopings of the rabbits, the sinuous dartings of the weasel and so on.2000, Alan Bennett, Writing Home
The noise created by something moving about.
- He would also have been exposed to the coughings and shufflings, comings and goings, questions and answers, wailings and slammings, snivellings and sneezings, etc., which figured so prominently in the reference room […]2011, John O'Loughlin, Two Sides of the Same Coin
(dated) Trickery.
- Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set out all his shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he was desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he was also inconceivably a coward) […]1906, Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill

shuffling (comparative more shuffling, superlative most shuffling)

Moving with a dragging, scraping step.
- This world I do renounce, and in your sights / Shake patiently my great affliction off.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
Evasive.
- a shuffling excuse1712, Jonathan Swift, The History of John Bull

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

(ambitransitive) To put in a random order.
- Don't forget to shuffle the cards.
To change; modify the order of something.
- 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.2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 – 2 Fulham”, in BBC Sport
(ambitransitive) To move in a slovenly, dragging manner; to drag or scrape the feet in walking or dancing.
- He shuffled out of the room.
To change one's position; to shift ground; to evade questions; to resort to equivocation; to prevaricate.
- I myself, […] hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Synonyms:

shamble, scuff
To use arts or expedients; to make shift.
- Your life, good master, / Must shuffle for itself.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
To shove one way and the other; to push from one to another.
- to shuffle money from hand to hand

What does shuffling mean?: Shuffling means the act or motion of one who shuffles.
What is shuffling the present participle and gerund of?: Shuffling is the present participle and gerund of shuffle.
What part of speech is shuffling?: Shuffling can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce shuffling?: Shuffling is pronounced /ˈʃʌfl̩ɪŋ/.
What is the plural of shuffling?: The plural of shuffling is shufflings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shuffling (page history and authors); shuffle (page history and authors). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-AcpoKrane-shuffling.wav.

Cite this entry: “shuffling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shuffling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.