shuffle

Etymology

Its origin is not settled.^[2][3] It is perhaps borrowed from Low German schüffeln (“to walk clumsily or with dragging feet; to deal dishonestly; to shuffle cards”),^{[2][4][5][3][6]} or a native word cognate with it.^[2][7][8][9] Barnhart and Etymonline instead take it as probably from Middle English shovelen (“to move with dragging feet”), recorded before 1450 in a version of the Wycliffite Bible,^[10][11][12] itself probably a frequentative of shoven, shove;^[10][11] the MED suggests a Middle Dutch source for that verb, comparing Dutch schuifelen and schoffelen.^[12] Either way it is a frequentative, with the suffix -le, of the Germanic base Proto-Germanic *skuf- of shove,^{[2][7][8][10]} and it is closely related to scuffle, which Klein calls a doublet of it,^[13][3][14] and to shovel.^[7][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put together hastily: the first record is shoffle in Sir Thomas More's Confutation of Tyndale's Answer (1532).^[10][11] Hoad notes that the word appears in the second half of the 16th century in a whole series of senses of pushing along, putting together, into or off in a disorderly or evasive way.^[8]

Semantic evolution

By 1565 the verb meant to push or slip something in underhandedly, to smuggle it in.^[2][10] The card sense, mixing a pack so that the order is unknown, is recorded from 1570,^[2][10] or from the 1560s according to Etymonline, which notes that it was often figurative;^[11] Weekley derives the sense "to prevaricate" from the cards.^[9] From 1576 the verb was used of moving the feet along the ground without lifting them,^[2][11] and Shakespeare's "shuffle off this mortal coil" in Hamlet gave the phrase shuffle off, to get rid of.^[11][9] The noun came from the verb: first an evasive trick or subterfuge (1628),^[2][10][15] then a dance in which the feet are shuffled (1659), and the act of shuffling cards (1651, in Hobbes's Leviathan).^[2][10] Johnson (1755) defined the noun first as the act of throwing things into disorder.^[16] The shuffling gait as a noun is recorded only from 1836 in the OED;^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1847.^[10][11] Lost in the shuffle, overlooked in a crowd, is American: by 1888 in Etymonline, 1930 in the OED.^[11][2] From 1941 a shuffle was also a redistribution of posts in a government, as in a reshuffle.^[2] Slang added a confidence trick (a double shuffle, in Joyce's Ulysses, 1922),^[17] and in Scotland shuffle-the-brogue was a name for the game of hunt the slipper.^[18]

Timeline

• 1532 – shoffle, to put together hastily.^[10][11]
• 1565 – to bring in deceitfully, to smuggle in.^[2][10]
• 1567 – to push along in a disorderly heap.^[2]
• 1570 – to mix playing cards; to jumble together.^[2][10][15]
• 1576 – to move the feet along without lifting them.^[2]
• 1601 – shuffle off, to get rid of, in Shakespeare.^[11]
• 1628 – noun, an evasive trick, subterfuge.^[2][10][15]
• 1651 – noun, the act of shuffling cards.^[2][10]
• 1659 – noun, a dance with shuffling steps.^[2][10]
• 1819 – to dance with a shuffle.^[2]
• 1836 – noun, a shuffling gait.^[2]
• 1930 – lost in the shuffle.^[2]
• 1941 – a redistribution of government posts.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To walk slowly, sliding or dragging the feet along the ground without lifting them: The old dog shuffled across the kitchen.^[4][2]
2. To move the feet in this way, or to shift about restlessly: The pupils shuffled in their seats.^[2][4]
3. To mix playing cards so as to change their order: It's your turn to shuffle.^[4][2][15]
4. To mix things together in a disorderly way; to jumble or move them about: She shuffled the letters on her desk.^[4][15][2]
5. To move or put something somewhere in a hurried, sly or evasive way, as in shuffle off or shuffle into: He shuffled the blame onto his deputy.^[4][15][2]
6. To behave evasively; to equivocate.^[4][2]
7. To dance with a shuffle.^[4][2]

Noun

1. A slow, dragging walk, or a movement of the feet without lifting them.^[2][15][11]
2. The act of shuffling cards, or a player's turn to shuffle.^[2][15]
3. A dance with sliding or shuffling steps.^[2][11]
4. A rearrangement or confused mixture, as of papers; a redistribution of posts in a government, as in a reshuffle.^[15][2]
5. lost in the shuffle: overlooked in a crowd or a confusion.^[2][15][11]
6. An evasion or trick.^[15][2][7]

Word family

• shuffler
• reshuffle
• shuffleboard

Related words

• shove
• shovel
• scuffle

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)