See whiffler in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"One who whiffles, or frequently changes their course or opinion."
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"(obsolete) One who whiffles, or frequently changes their course or opinion."
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"text": "Every Whiffler in a Laced Coat, who frequents the Chocolate-Houſe, and is able to ſpell the Title of a Pamphlet, ſhall Talk of the Conſtitution with as much Plauſibility as this very Solemn Writer, and with as good a Grace blame the Clergy for medling with Politicks which they do not underſtand.",
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"One who argues evasively; a trifler."
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"(obsolete) One who argues evasively; a trifler."
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"One who plays on a whiffle; a fifer or piper."
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"(obsolete) One who plays on a whiffle; a fifer or piper."
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"text": "[...] Men, Wiues and Boyes, / Whoſe ſhouts & claps out-voyce the deep-mouth'd Sea, / Which like a mightie Whiffler 'fore the King, / Seems to prepare his way: [...]",
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"text": "Whifflers, or fifers, generally went first in a procession, from which circumstance the name was transferred to other persons who succeeded to that office, and at length was given to those who went forward merely to clear the way for the procession […] In the city of London, young freemen, who march at the head of their proper companies on the Lord Mayor's day, sometimes with flags, were called whifflers, or bachelor whifflers, not because they cleared the way, but because they went first, as whifflers did.",
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"An officer who went before a procession to clear the way, by blowing a horn or otherwise; hence, any person who marched at the head of a procession; a harbinger."
],
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"(obsolete) An officer who went before a procession to clear the way, by blowing a horn or otherwise; hence, any person who marched at the head of a procession; a harbinger."
],
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"The goldeneye (duck)."
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"(US, dialectal) The goldeneye (duck)."
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"One who whiffles, or frequently changes their course or opinion."
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"(obsolete) One who whiffles, or frequently changes their course or opinion."
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"text": "Every Whiffler in a Laced Coat, who frequents the Chocolate-Houſe, and is able to ſpell the Title of a Pamphlet, ſhall Talk of the Conſtitution with as much Plauſibility as this very Solemn Writer, and with as good a Grace blame the Clergy for medling with Politicks which they do not underſtand.",
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"(obsolete) One who argues evasively; a trifler."
],
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},
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"One who plays on a whiffle; a fifer or piper."
],
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"(obsolete) One who plays on a whiffle; a fifer or piper."
],
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"text": "[...] Men, Wiues and Boyes, / Whoſe ſhouts & claps out-voyce the deep-mouth'd Sea, / Which like a mightie Whiffler 'fore the King, / Seems to prepare his way: [...]",
"type": "quote"
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{
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"text": "Whifflers, or fifers, generally went first in a procession, from which circumstance the name was transferred to other persons who succeeded to that office, and at length was given to those who went forward merely to clear the way for the procession […] In the city of London, young freemen, who march at the head of their proper companies on the Lord Mayor's day, sometimes with flags, were called whifflers, or bachelor whifflers, not because they cleared the way, but because they went first, as whifflers did.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
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"An officer who went before a procession to clear the way, by blowing a horn or otherwise; hence, any person who marched at the head of a procession; a harbinger."
],
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[
"officer",
"officer"
],
[
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"procession"
],
[
"clear",
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[
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[
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"(obsolete) An officer who went before a procession to clear the way, by blowing a horn or otherwise; hence, any person who marched at the head of a procession; a harbinger."
],
"tags": [
"obsolete"
]
},
{
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],
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"The goldeneye (duck)."
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"(US, dialectal) The goldeneye (duck)."
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],
"word": "whiffler"
}
Download raw JSONL data for whiffler meaning in English (4.3kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (9c82c1c and f1c2b61). 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.