as in to flip
to turn over pages in an idle or cursory manner
Web research is convenient but doesn't offer the tactile pleasures of riffling through heavy old books
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Recent Examples of riffle
Amy Schulman, PEOPLE.com, 6 May 2022
Two Guns spread through madly riffling brush, the path crunching under my hiking boots going uphill.
—Chris Malloy, Condé Nast Traveler, 8 June 2020
Joe Cermele, Field & Stream, 14 Mar. 2024
Beneath our breathy hollers, a river runs dark, sprays of pebble -leaping riffles instantly aloft: Corona crowns the south: Hole edged with brimming sprays of light!
—Christopher Cokinos, Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2020
See All Example Sentences for riffle
Verb
Keep reading to check out more weekend deals, or head straight to Amazon to riffle through everything else that's on sale right now.
—Amy Schulman, PEOPLE.com, 6 May 2022
Two Guns spread through madly riffling brush, the path crunching under my hiking boots going uphill.
—Chris Malloy, Condé Nast Traveler, 8 June 2020
Noun
Why: Rainbows spawn in the spring as soon as the water temperature breaks 40 degrees, often making redds in the riffles above pools.
—Joe Cermele, Field & Stream, 14 Mar. 2024
Beneath our breathy hollers, a river runs dark, sprays of pebble -leaping riffles instantly aloft: Corona crowns the south: Hole edged with brimming sprays of light!
—Christopher Cokinos, Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2020
See All Example Sentences for riffle
Recent Examples of Synonyms for riffle
Verb
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One strong gust of wind can be enough to flip one of these trailers onto its side.—
CA Weather Bot,
Sacramento Bee,
20 Mar. 2025
-
Lee, whose career spans four decades, has solidified himself as a versatile actor capable of flipping between drama and comedy.—
Shelby Stewart,
Essence,
20 Mar. 2025
Noun
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For example, complex analysis is used to manipulate wavelets, or small oscillations in data.—
William Ross,
The Conversation,
10 Mar. 2025
-
Does the little surge of Trump dances across sports represent a wave, or at least a wavelet, of athletes declaring their allegiances for the President-elect?—
Louisa Thomas,
The New Yorker,
24 Nov. 2024
Verb
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This is because of the increasing demands for networking and switches to connect exponentially larger clusters, from spine to leaf in the front end and back end, rack to rack and accelerator to accelerator.—
Beth Kindig,
Forbes,
19 Dec. 2024
-
Such a cacophony means that the reader keeps having to leaf back to make sense of the storyline.—
Ruth Margalit,
The New York Review of Books,
30 Mar. 2023
Noun
-
In place of his signature long curls, Baldoni's dark hair is cut into a tapered buzz cut with longer strands on top.—
Catherine Santino,
People.com,
26 Mar. 2025
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Instead of the usual flipped out ends, Rihanna’s long bob curls inwards with a bouncy blowout.—
Ariana Yaptangco,
Glamour,
25 Mar. 2025
Verb
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Comically massive in scale yet modest in ambition, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie thumbs its nose at our fascination with spectacle.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
13 Mar. 2025
-
Sanchez quit school in 1969 at age 15, thumbed his way from Kansas City to Woodstock, got tear-gassed at anti-war rallies, rambled up to Canada to drop acid with draft dodgers.—
David Hudnall,
Kansas City Star,
21 Feb. 2025
Noun
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At the time, rock & rollers were starting to launch their own labels, subsidized by majors.—
David Browne,
Rolling Stone,
18 Mar. 2025
-
The brand has more or less done it all, outfitting Gold Rush prospectors and rock ‘n rollers a like.—
Evan Clark,
WWD,
14 Mar. 2025
Verb
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Enter the hollow-body frog, which will skim over the mats with ease.—
Joe Cermele,
Outdoor Life,
26 Mar. 2025
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In 2017, a previous version of the car skimmed a cyclist in London, leading to some bad press, so this latest iteration has been programmed not to overtake cyclists, horse riders, or anything slow-moving on the road.—
Carlton Reid,
Forbes,
14 Mar. 2025
Noun
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In the scope was one of the many tiny fish bones that were found that day, probably belonging to a small comber or a wrasse.—
Paul Greenberg,
Smithsonian Magazine,
21 Dec. 2022
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The destructive combers continued to undermine dwellings near the water’s edge at West Newport Beach.—
Scott Harrison,
Los Angeles Times,
4 Sep. 2019
Cite this Entry
“Riffle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/riffle. Accessed 1 Apr. 2025.
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