# whiff-whaff
## English
### Pronunciation

* This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!
* Audio (Southern England):(file)

### Alternative forms

* whiff whaff, wiff-waff

### Etymology 1

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

#### Noun

whiff-whaff (uncountable)
* (archaic) Table tennis.
** [2008 September 2, Chris Irvine, “Boris Johnson in whiff-whaff ping-pong row”, in The Telegraph‎, 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)
* 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)
* (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.
* (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.