"niff-naff" meaning in English

See niff-naff in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: niff-naffs [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} niff-naff (plural niff-naffs)
  1. Something or someone insignificant; a trifle.
    Sense id: en-niff-naff-en-noun-doMIfONz Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "niff-naffs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "niff-naff (plural niff-naffs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1869, Thomas Thomson, Tales and sketches, page 322:",
          "text": "When it came to Mr. Turnbull, he held it up between him and the light, \"Keatie, whaten a niff-naff of a glass is this? let us see a feasible ane.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Ski, volume 71, number 3, page 175:",
          "text": "\"They appear, friend,\" I reply, unhelpfully and without irony, as if any niff-naff who owns a megayacht with a decent liquor cabinet would know such a thing, \"rather like the color of absinthe.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something or someone insignificant; a trifle."
      ],
      "id": "en-niff-naff-en-noun-doMIfONz",
      "links": [
        [
          "insignificant",
          "insignificant"
        ],
        [
          "trifle",
          "trifle"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "niff-naff"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "niff-naffs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "niff-naff (plural niff-naffs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1869, Thomas Thomson, Tales and sketches, page 322:",
          "text": "When it came to Mr. Turnbull, he held it up between him and the light, \"Keatie, whaten a niff-naff of a glass is this? let us see a feasible ane.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Ski, volume 71, number 3, page 175:",
          "text": "\"They appear, friend,\" I reply, unhelpfully and without irony, as if any niff-naff who owns a megayacht with a decent liquor cabinet would know such a thing, \"rather like the color of absinthe.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something or someone insignificant; a trifle."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "insignificant",
          "insignificant"
        ],
        [
          "trifle",
          "trifle"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "niff-naff"
}

Download raw JSONL data for niff-naff meaning in English (1.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (eaedd02 and 8fbd9e8). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.