RIFFLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Riffle

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/rˈɪfəl/ Listen

noun

Riffle n.

(Mining) A trough or sluice having cleats, grooves, or steps across the bottom for holding quicksilver and catching particles of gold when auriferous earth is washed; also, one of the cleats, grooves, or steps in such a trough. Also called ripple.

A ripple in a stream or current of water; also, a place where the water ripples, as on a shallow rapid. (Local, U. S.) "The bass have left the cool depth beside the rock and are on the riffle or just below it."

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Etymology of 'Riffle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Riffle" Quotes from Famous Books

... to a decisive pass on a July day in the late '80's when the two Tatums sent word to the two Stackpoles that at or about six o'clock of that evening they would come down the side road from their place a mile away to Stackpole Brothers' gristmill above the big riffle in Cache Creek prepared to fight it out man to man. The warning was explicit enough—the Tatums would shoot on sight. The message was meant for two, but only one brother heard it; for Jeffrey Stackpole, the senior member of the firm, was sick abed with heart disease ...

— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... The deserted building seemed to be getting on his nerves, for he went behind the bar several times and, with shaking fingers, poured stiff drinks of red whisky. Then he walked to one of the deserted card tables and began to riffle ...

— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... the slow goose step—much admired by Colonel Stewart, who pointed them out to one of his captains as wonders of precision, and also distinguished themselves in eating. They failed several times under fire, once they caused a riffle of real excitement in Archangel when they started a mutiny, and finally they were used chiefly as labor units and as valets and batmen for officers and horses. They were charged with having a mutinous spirit and with plotting to go over to the Bolsheviks. They did in small numbers at times. ...

— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... kept them out; gallynippers, whatever they were, certainly did not; they were believed to abound at the bottom of the deep holes; but the boys never stayed long in the deep holes, and they preferred the shallow places, where the river broke into a long ripple (they called it riffle) on its gravelly bed, and where they could at once soak and bask in the musical rush of the sunlit waters. I have heard people in New England blame all the Western rivers for being yellow and turbid; but I know that after the spring floods, when the Miami had settled down to its summer business ...

— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... other, confidently; "but that's my long suit, you ought to know. Never yet did git lost, an' I reckon I ain't a-goin' to do it now. I'll lay it all out and make the riffle, don't ...

— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren