whiff-whaff

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See also: whiff whaff

English

Alternative forms

Etymology 1

From Whiff-Waff, coined by Slazenger & Sons in 1900.

Noun

whiff-whaff (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) Table tennis.
    • , retrieved 2020-11-24:
      Boris Johnson's claim ping-pong was originally a Victorian English invention called whiff-whaff has been attacked by the descendants of the world's oldest sporting and games manufacturer.]
    • 2010, Ben Dirs, Tom Fordyce, Karma Chameleons, →ISBN:
      Jesus wept, there I'd been envisaging a weekend spent reading a book with only my top half hanging out of my tent, and the next thing I know I'm signed up for a spot of naked whiff-whaff. Not that Tom seemed too bothered. "I'm not bad at table-tennis," he said as we made our way to our pitch.
    • 2010 July 17, Howard Jacobson, “Whiff! Whaff! The beautiful game may be coming home”, in The Independent‎, retrieved 2020-11-24:
      "The French looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner," he said. "We looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play whiff-whaff." In fact table tennis was also called gossima in the early days, and, given that Gossamer is the brand name of a condom, the Mayor of London missed out on an even better joke, perhaps calculating that the Chinese wouldn't get it.

Etymology 2

Onomatopoeia

Noun

whiff-whaff (plural whiff-whaffs)

  1. The breathy sound of something rushing quickly; whoosh.
    • 1922, Stanley John Weyman, The Wild Geese, page 87:
      Then, no one saw precisely how it happened, whiff-whaff, Lemoine's weapon flew from his hand and struck the wall with a whirr and a jangle.

Etymology 3

South Lancashire dialect for nonsense, unspecified words or deeds.

Noun

whiff-whaff (uncountable)

  1. (Lancashire, obsolete) Nonsense, words or deeds of little import.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense
    • 1854, Tim Bobbin, Samuel Bamford, The dialect of South Lancashire: or, Tim Bobbin's Tummus and Meary, page 4:
      Whau, aw'll begin o' thisn' then. It's whiff-whaff Stuart, -- snifterin' Finch yo'known Virtue has laft o' -- truth is fro' o'flown!
    • 1887, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, A Border Shepherdess: A Romance of Eskdale, page 96:
      If you dinna lackey my lady you'll be in for a whiff-whaff o' her sharp temper.
    • 1894, Amelia E. Barr, The Flower of Gala Water: A Novel, page 197:
      You need a seasoning of my penetration, and so on, etc' I shall further intimate that it was, after all, a mare's nest — a whiff-whaff of country say-so — etc., etc.
  2. (Lancashire) Unnecessary items or additions.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:thingy
    • 1938, Loraine Osborn, Your Voice Personality, page 137:
      Never, never, wear any kind of a whiff-whaff or a thing-ama-bob on your hat.
    • 1975, Jack Newcombe, The best of the athletic boys: the white man's impact on Jim Thorpe:
      Haughton, a great believer in the value of straight football, asked Warner the night before the game if he had pulled such "whiff- whaff," as Percy termed it.
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