shuffle

plural shuffles

1. The act of mixing cards or mah-jong tiles so as to randomize them.

   He made a real mess of the last shuffle.

2. The act of reordering anything, such as music tracks in a media player.
3. An instance of walking without lifting one's feet.

   The sad young girl left with a tired shuffle.

4. broadlyentertainmentA rhythm commonly used in blues music, consisting of a series of triplet notes with the middle note missing, so that it sounds like a long note followed by a short note, and suggests a walker dragging one foot.
5. danceA dance move in which the foot is scuffed back and forth across the floor.
6. A trick; an artifice; an evasion.

   The Gifts of Nature are beyond all the Shams and Shuffles in the World.

   1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC

present singular third person shuffles · participle present shuffling · participle past shuffled · past shuffled

1. ambitransitiveTo put in a random order.

   You shuffle, and I'll deal.

   4 more examples

   Don't forget to shuffle the cards.

   The data packets are shuffled before transmission.

   I'm going to shuffle all the songs in my playlist.

   Behind her, she heard the flutter of cards being shuffled back into the pack.

   2015, Abra S.W., A Circus of Brass and Bone, Bimulous Books

2. To change; modify the order of something.

   But, rather than make a change up front, Hughes shuffled his defence for this match, replacing Carlos Salcido with Baird, in a move which few would have predicted would prove decisive.

   2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 – 2 Fulham”, in BBC Sport

3. ambitransitiveTo move in a slovenly, dragging manner; to drag or scrape the feet in walking or dancing.

   He shuffled out of the room.

   4 more examples

   I shuffled my feet in embarrassment.

   [T]he aged creature came, / Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand, […]

   1819, John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza XI, page 88

   Even when the other instruments were resting the pianist kept up his monotonous vamping, with a dreary furbelow for embellishment here and there, to which some few of the dancers continued to shuffle round the floor.

   1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 4, in The Subtle Minotaur

   The regular crowd shuffles in

   1973, “Piano Man”, Billy Joel (music)

4. To change one's position; to shift ground; to evade questions; to resort to equivocation; to prevaricate.

   I myself, […] hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]

   Synonyms: shamble, scuff

5. To use arts or expedients; to make shift.

   Your life, good master, / Must shuffle for itself.

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene v]

6. To shove one way and the other; to push from one to another.

   to shuffle money from hand to hand

7. To remove or introduce by artificial confusion.

   Therefore you do vvell to have recourſe to your laſt Evaſion, that it vvas contriv'd by your Enemies, and ſhuffled into the Papers that vvere ſeiz'd: vvhich yet you ſee the Nation is not ſo eaſy to believe as your ovvn Fury; […]

   1682, [John Dryden], “Epistle to the Whigs”, in The Medall. A Satyre Against Sedition. […], Edinburgh: [s.n.], →OCLC