Pronounced: RUN-l, noun
Notes: This entry is not entirely a coincidence; that’s all I’m going to say until tomorrow
Yesterday’s word
The word riffle has a lot of meanings; as a verb, the primary meaning is a method of shuffling cards (dividing the deck in half, and flicking the adjacent corners together). However, as a noun, it refers to a rapid place in a steam or a rocky shoal that causes a rapid. It can also refer to something used at the bottom of a sluice that has transverse grooves to trap gold particles.
First usage
The word goes back to the mid-1600s
Background / Comments
It is thought that this word is a combination of ripple and ruffle. I ran across this word in a Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe) novella Immune to Murder – from the context, it seemed to refer to a stream, but I’ve never heard the word before. I think I’ve mentioned Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories before: Nearly every one has some good vocabulary word.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 