| 释义 |
▪ I. riffle, n.|ˈrɪf(ə)l|
Also 7 rifle.
[Cf. riffle v. It is not quite certain that all the senses really belong to the same word.]
I.
†1. Sc. A ruffling or rubbing. Obs.
1637Rutherford Lett. i. cxciii. (1664) 375 When my wounds are closing, a little rifle causeth them to bleed afresh.
2. dial. (See quot.)
1880W. Cornw. Gloss., Riffle, a break in a roof made by a strong wind carrying away the slates or thatch.
3. a. In card-sharping: (see quot. 1894). Also riffle-shuffle.
1894Maskelyne Sharps & Flats 137 The riffle, or butt-in, as it is called in America, is the shuffle in which..the thumbs ‘riffle’, or bend up the corners of the cards. 1970K. Roos What did Hattie See? xi. 105 He gave the deck a riffle shuffle, carefully not disturbing the four bottom cards. 1972Sci. Amer. July 104/1 With your back still turned, ask him to cut the deck several times, then give it one thorough riffle-shuffle.
b. A quick skim or leafing through (of pages of a book, papers, etc.).
1960Guardian 28 Oct. 6/4, I skimmed the book in a first riffle. 1967Adv. Inorg. Chem. & Radiochem. X. 373 A fast riffle through the thallium volume of Gmelin's Handbuch..uncovers the following mixed valence compounds. 1979J. Gardner Nostradamus Traitor vii. 22 Just a riffle through the books.
II. orig. and chiefly U.S.
4. a. A rocky obstruction in the bed of a river; a piece of broken water produced by this; a rapid. (Cf. the earlier ripple n.3) Also Canad.
1785R. Butler Jrnl. in Olden Time (1847) Oct. 440 Met riffles, all very shallow, struck with the barge several times. 1796F. Baily Jrnl. Tour (1856) 149 These places..are called by the inhabitants ‘Riffles’; I suppose, a corruption of the word ‘ruffle’, as the water is violently agitated in those parts. 1833H. Martineau Briery Creek i. 11 The riffle of the Creek, or the shallows formed by the unevenness of its rocky bottom. 1865Visc. Milton & Cheadle N.W. Passage 379 A little below Quesnelle Mouth is a rather dangerous ‘riffle’, or rapid, of lumpy water. 1948Sat. Even. Post 23 Oct. 36/2 In the lingo of our Rogue River guides, a riffle is anything between a foaming cataract and white-water rapids heavily sprinkled with boulders. 1962M. E. Murie Two in Far North ii. vi. 153 In the course of the morning we fought our way over six riffles. 1976Nature 5 Aug. 483/1 Other research workers have noted that the spacing of riffles in straight and meandering channels is between five and seven channel widths and that skew shoals in flumes have been found to be 6.5 channel widths apart. 1980Birds Summer 22/2 Dipper and common sandpiper are associated with rapid flowing, relatively well aerated water with riffles (shallow sections)—features generally only found on upland rivers.
b. to make the riffle: to succeed in crossing a rapid; hence fig., to be successful in an attempt or undertaking.
1853F. A. Buck Let. 31 Dec. in Yankee Trader in Gold Rush (1930) 130 ‘Madam La Marquise’..built a splendid saloon, opened and flourished for about two months but couldn't make the riffle. 1873‘Mark Twain’ & Warner Gilded Age xxxi. 279 There's old Balaam, was in the Interior—..he's made the riffle on the Injun; great Injun pacificator and land-dealer. 1887M. Roberts Western Avernus 202 Fighting the stream at intervals, but ‘making the riffle’, or crossing the rapid. 1911R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter i. 19, I aint got no business doin' that, but I'll try if I can make the riffle. 1950Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Okla.) 14 Feb. 8/1 [The] Rexroat girls [were] doing their best trying to win first in the basketball tournament but they couldn't quite make the riffle.
c. A ripple or ruffle.
1938M. K. Rawlings Yearling x. 92 A slight breath of air rippled across the marsh and the water rippled under it... ‘Jest enough of a riffle,’ Penny said, ‘and the moon jest right.’ 1960J. Stroud Shorn Lamb ii. 17, I had one sensational glimpse of a long white leg and a riffle of white underwear. 1975New Yorker 27 Oct. 111/3 We stood and listened to the silence—to the voices of birds, to the stir of a breeze in the trees, to the riffle of moving water.
5. a. In gold-washing: A slat, bar, cleat, or block, placed across the bottom of a cradle or sluice in order to break the current and detain the gold. b. A groove or channel across the bottom of a cradle or sluice, or the space between two bars, etc., serving to catch the gold; a mercury-bath in a washing-table. More widely, a transverse bar or channel, usu. one of a series, for breaking a flow of fluid or sorting or separating a stream of particles.
1850N. Kingsley Diary 7 May (1914) 120 Finished the riffles to the machine to day. 1862B. Taylor Home & Abroad Ser. ii. 144 The sand..[is swept] into a long sluice. Here it is still further agitated by means of riffles across the bottom, and the gold is caught in grooves filled with quicksilver. 1865M. Macfie Vancouver & Brit. Columbia 268 Along the bottom of the rocker riffles or cleets are arranged to arrest the gold. (Note. These are strips of wood or metal arranged after the manner of a Venetian blind.) 1875J. H. Collins Met. Mining 113 The gold and silver ore is first stamped fine, and then allowed to pass successively over amalgamated copper plates, ‘riffles’, or small stony channels containing mercury [etc.]. 1882U.S. Rep. Prec. Met. 194 Cinnabar..is found in such quantities as to prove troublesome in washing for gold, filling the riffles where gold should lodge. 1882Electro-Amalg. Co. Prospectus 4 He provides a table,..in which he places two or more riffles, or baths containing mercury. 1882U.S. Rep. Prec. Met. 628 The sluices are..paved with block riffles or rock riffles, which serve..to catch the gold and the amalgam. 1915Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers LI. 405 During the past three years there has been developed at Morenci a new type or arrangement of riffles. 1939A. M. Gaudin Princ. Mineral Dressing xiii. 298 Riffles are of great importance to tabling. They are responsible for the increased capacity of riffled decks over smooth ones. 1951Kirk & Othmer Encycl. Chem. Technol. VII. 307 A sluice is essentially an inclined trough or launder, the bottom of which is provided with transverse strips or riffles, with variable spacing. 1955H. R. Cox Gas Turbine Princ. & Pract. xviii. 9 The primary air and fuel stream is divided on leaving the pump by a simple riffle arrangement. 1964F. Chichester Lonely Sea & Sky v. 48 We shovelled the gravel into long boxes with ‘riffles’, small pieces of wood across them, which stopped the heavy gold when the pay dirt was washed through the box by the river. 1968Coulson & Richardson Chem. Engin. (ed. 2) II. xvii. 691 A series of slats, or riffles as they are termed, about 1/4 in. in height... The large particles and the less dense material are carried downwards, and the remainder is carried parallel to the riffles.
c. attrib., as riffle-bed, riffle-board, riffle-box, riffle-sluice.
1862Mining & Smelting Mag. I. 398 When amalgamation is employed, the riffle-boxes may be charged with mercury. 1877Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 349 About one-half of the ore going through the mill is saved by means of riffle-sluices. 1882U.S. Rep. Prec. Met. 570 The finer particles of dirt and dust being thrown away by the current behind before falling on the riffle-bed. Ibid., Riffles are placed at suitable distances on the riffle-board.
6. A transverse bar in a fish-ladder.
1890in Cent. Dict.
▪ II. riffle
dial. variant of rifle n.2
▪ III. riffle, v.|ˈrɪf(ə)l|
[Of obscure history: perh. partly a variant of ruffle v., and partly ad. F. riffler, obs. var. of rifler (see rifle v.1).]
1. intr. To form a ‘riffle’ or rapid. U.S. rare.
1754New Eng. Hist. Reg. (1868) XXII. 408 The navigation to Norridgewalk is considerably difficult by reason of the rapidity of the stream, and riffling falls.
2. trans.
a. To handle in a hesitating manner, so as to produce a slight rattle. rare.
1852Miss Mitford Recoll. I. 309 After some riffling of the latch,..the front gate was tremblingly opened.
b. Of the wind: To strip (a house or roof) of thatch, tiles, or slates. dial. rare.
Cf. rifle v.1 5 (quots. 1762 and 1770).
1880W. Cornw. Gloss., The wind riffled lots of housen last night. 1891Pearce Esther Pentreath i. iii, The clay-walled cottages..had their reedy coverings ‘riffled’ by almost every gust.
c. To plough lightly. (Cf. riffler2.) dial. rare.
1893H. T. Cozens-Hardy Broad Norfolk (ed. 2) 14 To ‘riffle’, i.e., to disturb the surface with a plough.
d. U.S. To ruffle in a slight or rippling manner. Also fig.
1901S. E. White in Century Mag. LXII. 466/1 The breeze and the sun played with the prairie grasses, the breeze riffling them over. 1926Ladies' Home Jrnl. Nov. 228 Even the wail of music from the Palace of Dance barely riffled his preoccupation. 1977D. Harsent Dreams of Dead 24 A wind riffling the orchard.
3. a. In card-sharping: To bend up (cards) at the corners in shuffling; to shuffle in this manner. (Cf. riffle n. 3.)
1894Maskelyne Sharps & Flats 138 The top half of the pack being taken in the right hand, and those of the bottom in the left, the cards are riffled together upon the table. 1939Reader's Digest May 29/1 Pick up and riffle a deck of cards. All you see is a blur of card ends. 1973‘J. Ashford’ Double Run iv. 30 Comyns collected up the cards and riffled them into a pack with slow and deliberate movements.
b. To flick through (papers, books, etc.); to thumb (a block of paper, a book, etc.), releasing the leaves in (usu. rapid) succession.
1922H. Titus Timber viii. 77 He riffled the pages slowly. 1938R. Franken Gold Pennies xv. 159 Mrs. Miller glanced at the opening paragraph, and then riffled the pages tentatively. 1948Electronic Engin. XX. 367/3 The material to be counted must be riffled so that a step-like edge is presented, though the riffling need not be perfect. 1957T. Sturgeon in D. Knight 100 Yrs. Sci. Fiction (1969) 125 Slim lifted the paper out of the box,..riffled a thumbful of the sheets at the top. 1958J. Baldwin in Mademoiselle Mar. 149/1 He quickly riffled some papers on his desk, putting on a business air as rakishly as she had seen him put on his hat. 1977G. Durrell Golden Bats & Pink Pigeons iv. 87 He took my passport and riffled it..like an expert card sharper.
c. intr. To thumb or leaf through. Also transf. and fig.
1931Sun (Baltimore) 19 Feb. 10/7 Yesterday, while riffling through a new book of memories and character sketches,..I saw it said that Mr. Bertrand Russell..reads detective fiction. 1959Times 5 Nov. 14/6 A blonde girl..propped a music-stand in front of her, and riffled through a script. 1960V. Nabokov Invitation to Beheading vi. 64 The draught riffled through the papers on the table. Ibid. vii. 74 He produced..a thick batch of home snapshots of the smallest size. Riffling through them as through a deck of cards, he began placing them one by one on the table. 1962Listener 22 Nov. 845/2, I was riffling through these morbid thoughts. 1967Boston Sunday Globe 23 Apr. b41/5 Riffling through a few recent editions of morning and evening Globes and New York, Washington, and Philadelphia newspapers we come across lines that read: Mortgage cut near [etc.]. 1979A. Hailey Overload i. x. 60 At his desk he riffled through the messages. |