wisping

Verb

wisp (third-person singular simple present wisps, present participle wisping, simple past and past participle wisped)

1. (transitive) To brush or dress, as with a wisp.
   • The very same head of hair, wisp'd, and matted together, would make the most disagreeable figure.1753, William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty
2. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) To rumple.
3. (intransitive) To produce a wisp, as of smoke.
   • To Temple, sitting in the cottonseed-hulls and the corn-cobs, the sound was no louder than the striking of a match: a short, minor sound shutting down the scene, the instant, with a profound finality, completely isolating it, and she sat there, her legs straight before her, her hands limp and...1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, published 1985, page 70
4. (transitive) To emit in wisps.
   • It looked warm and rosy-bright inside, with a little chimney wisping smoke, little windows glowing.2011, Iain Lawrence, The Winter Pony, page 219

See all 11 meanings of wisp