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Whiff vs Loft - What's the difference?

whiff | loft |

As nouns the difference between whiff and loft

is that whiff is a waft; a brief, gentle breeze; a light gust of air while loft is air.

As a verb whiff

is to waft.

As an adjective whiff

is (colloquial) having a strong or unpleasant odor.

whiff

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A waft; a brief, gentle breeze; a light gust of air
  • An odour carried briefly through the air
  • * (rfdate)
  • everyone has always known, widely promiscuous heterosexual men have, as I say, a whiff of the bathhouse about them.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), Chapter 2
  • A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor
  • A short inhalation of breath, especially of smoke from a cigarette or pipe
  • * Longfellow
  • The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, / And a scornful laugh laughed he.
  • (figurative) a slight sign of something; a glimpse
  • * 2012 , Ben Smith, Leeds United 2-1 Everton [http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19632366]
  • This was a rare whiff of the big-time for a club whose staple diet became top-flight football for so long - the glamour was in short supply, however. Thousands of empty seats and the driving Yorkshire rain saw to that.
  • (baseball) A strike (from the batter’s perspective)
  • The megrim, a fish .
  • Synonyms

    * puff * sniff * waft

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To waft.
  • To sniff.
  • (baseball) To strike out.
  • (slang) to attempt to strike and miss, especially being off-balance/vulnerable after missing.
  • To throw out in whiffs; to consume in whiffs; to puff.
  • To carry or convey by a whiff, or as by a whiff; to puff or blow away.
  • * Ben Jonson
  • Old Empedocles, who, when he leaped into Etna, having a dry, sear body, and light, the smoke took him, and whiffed him up into the moon.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (colloquial) Having a strong or unpleasant odor.
  • * 2002: Jim Rozen, Way oil in rec.crafts.metalworking
  • Whoo boy that gear oil is pretty whiff . If you actually do this, spend the extra money for the synthetic gear oil as it will not have as bad a sulfur stink as the regular stuff.

    Derived terms

    * whiffle

    loft

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete, except in derivatives) air, the air; the sky, the heavens.
  • An attic or similar space (often used for storage) in the roof of a house or other building.
  • (textiles) The thickness of a soft object when not under pressure.
  • A gallery or raised apartment in a church, hall, etc.
  • an organ loft
  • (obsolete) A floor or room placed above another.
  • * Bible, Acts xx. 9
  • Eutychus fell down from the third loft .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To propel high into the air.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=September 28 , author=Tom Rostance , title=Arsenal 2 - 1 Olympiakos , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.}}
  • (bowling) To throw the ball erroneously through the air instead of releasing it on the lane's surface.
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete, rare) lofty; proud; haughty
  • (Surrey)
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