shuffling

shuffling

1. present participle of shuffle

shuffling (plural shufflings)

1. The act or motion of one who shuffles.
   • 2000, Alan Bennett, Writing Home

     Jane Gibson taught the cast the movements of the various creatures they were representing: the linear shufflings of the hedgehogs, the dozy lollopings of the rabbits, the sinuous dartings of the weasel and so on.

2. The noise created by something moving about.
   • 2011, John O'Loughlin, Two Sides of the Same Coin

     He would also have been exposed to the coughings and shufflings, comings and goings, questions and answers, wailings and slammings, snivellings and sneezings, etc., which figured so prominently in the reference room […]

3. (dated) trickery
   • Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill

     Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set out all his shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he was desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he was also inconceivably a coward) […]

shuffling (comparative more shuffling, superlative most shuffling)

1. Moving with a dragging, scraping step.
   • Shakespeare

     A shuffling nag.

2. evasive
   • T. Burnet

     a shuffling excuse