skiffle
/ˈskɪf.əl/
skiffle noun: a type of folk music, with jazz and blues influences, using homemade or improvised instruments.
Noun (1)
skiffle (uncountable)
- A type of folk music, with jazz and blues influences, using homemade or improvised instruments.
- The cats and the bats—and I hope you dig that one about the bats—played like mad in the backbeat 12, skiffling and skuffling , trying to get under the wire .1943, Negro Digest - Volume 2, page 47
- In Liverpool, the Quarrymen were one group of teenage Donegan admirers, but there were plenty of others: the Martinis, the Raving Texans, the Bluegenes and the Blackjacks—all skiffling their hearts out .2012, Patrick Humphries, Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock & Roll
Verb (1)
skiffle (third-person singular simple present skiffles, present participle skiffling, simple past and past participle skiffled)
- To play skiffle.
Noun (2)
skiffle (plural skiffles)
- Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”).
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:skiffle.
- This is when hardy divers such as American mergansers, goldeneyes, buffleheads, and scaup pay my lake a late staging visit, bobbing on the last patches of open water against the season's first skiffles of snow. Gradually the nights get [colder].1999, Monte Hummel, Wintergreen: Reflections from Loon Lake
- Synonyms:
- skiff
Verb (2)
skiffle (third-person singular simple present skiffles, present participle skiffling, simple past and past participle skiffled)
- To move in a way that stirs up and moves anything loose lying on the surface.
- As I am sitting at the stoplight under the maple and oak and cedar trees I see three tiny kids skiffling and shuffling and skittering and scuffling In the leaves2016, Brian Doyle, The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be, page 87
- He shakes his head in puzzlement and bends for the suitcases, his Salvation Army shoes encased in plastic bread bags for protection skiffling in the gravel as he resumes his pilgrimage, this rabbit-faced disciple of the Lord, his little grey teeth overhanging his thin lower lip.2016, Kyp Harness, Wigford Rememberies
Synonyms of skiffle
Forms of skiffle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | skiffles |
| present participle | skiffling |
| past participle | skiffled |
| past | skiffled |
| Noun | |
| plural | skiffles |
Origin of skiffle
From or related to Scots skiffle, from skiff (whence English skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”), which see for more). Related to skift (“light dusting of snow”).
Words formed from skiffle
Words that rhyme with skiffle
Questions about skiffle
- What does skiffle mean?
- Skiffle means a type of folk music, with jazz and blues influences, using homemade or improvised instruments.
- What part of speech is skiffle?
- Skiffle can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce skiffle?
- Skiffle is pronounced /ˈskɪf.əl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of skiffle?
- The plural of skiffle is skiffles.
Words near skiffle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: skiffle (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skiffle.wav.
Cite this entry: “skiffle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skiffle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.