verb (old).—1.  Generic for trifling: to hesitate, talk idly, prevaricate, waver. Hence WHIFFLER = a trifler, a fickle or unsteady person; WHIFFLERY (WHIFFLING or WHIFFLE-WHAFFLE) = levity, nonsense; WHIFFLING, adj. = uncertain.

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  1607.  DEKKER, Northward Hoe, ii. 1. Your right WHIFFLER indeed hangs himself in St. Martin’s, and not in Cheapside.

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  1671–94.  TILLOTSON, Sermons, xlv. Every man ought to be stedfast … and not suffer himself to be WHIFFLED … by an insignificant noise.

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  d. 1745.  SWIFT, The Public Spirit of the Whigs. Every WHIFFLER in a laced coat … shall talk of the constitution.

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  1741.  I. WATTS, The Improvement of the Mind, I. ix. 27. A person of a WHIFFLING and unsteady turn of mind.

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  c. 1834.  CARLYLE [FROUDE, Life in London, iii.]. Life is no frivolity, or hypothetical coquetry or WHIFFLING.

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  2.  (old).—To drink.

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