different between shuffle vs stagger

English

Etymology

Originally the same word as scuffle, and properly a frequentative of shove.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???f?l/
• Rhymes: -?f?l

Noun

shuffle (plural shuffles)

1. The act of shuffling cards.

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

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

Quotations

• 1995, Mel Kernahan, White savages in the South Seas, Verso, page 113:

  As I lay there listening to the strange night sounds, I hear the shuffle of someone creeping by outside in the grass.

• 2003, Edmund G. Bansak & Robert Wise, Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career, McFarland, page 394:

  She has a crippled leg, and every time she walks we hear the shuffle of her crinoline skirt and the thumping of her cane.

• 2008, Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, Pan Macmillan Australia, page 148:

  Around her, she could hear the shuffle of her own hands, disturbing the shelves.

Derived terms

• lost in the shuffle

Translations

Verb

shuffle (third-person singular simple present shuffles, present participle shuffling, simple past and past participle shuffled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To put in a random order.

2. To change; modify the order of something.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To move in a slovenly, dragging manner; to drag or scrape the feet in walking or dancing.
4. To change one's position; to shift ground; to evade questions; to resort to equivocation; to prevaricate.
5. To use arts or expedients; to make shift.
6. To shove one way and the other; to push from one to another.

7. To remove or introduce by artificial confusion.

Synonyms

• (walk without picking up one's feet): shamble

Derived terms

Translations

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From English shuffle.

Verb

shuffle (present tense shuffler, simple past and past participle shufflet)

1. to shuffle (including dancing the shuffle, playing shuffleboard)

References

• “shuffle_2” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

English

Etymology

From Middle English stageren, stakeren, from Old Norse stakra (“to push, stagger”). Cognate with dialectal Danish stagre.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?stæ??/?
• (US) IPA^(key): /?stæ??/
• Rhymes: -æ??(r)

Noun

stagger (plural staggers)

1. An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion
   • 7 October 2012, Paolo Bandini in The Guardian, Denver Broncos 21 New England Patriots 31 - as it happened

     Put down the rosary beads folks, I believe hell may just have frozen over. Peyton Manning drops back, sees nothing open and runs for a first down. If you can call that running. More like the stagger of a wounded rhino. Did the job, though

   • 1861, Ellen Wood, East Lynne Chapter 39

     Afy slowly gathered in the sense of the words. She gasped twice, as if her breath had gone, and then, with a stagger and a shiver, fell heavily to the ground.

   • 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Stave 2

     And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire; both hands to your partner, bow and courtesy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut"—cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

2. (veterinary medicine) A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling

3. Bewilderment; perplexity.
4. The spacing out of various actions over time.
   • 19 April 2016, Rachel Roddy in The Guardian, Rachel Roddy’s Roman spring vegetable stew recipe

     I don’t include cured pork, although it is very nice, and rather than putting everything in the pan at once I prefer a stagger of ingredients, which ensures each one gets the right amount of time.

5. (motor racing) The difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners.
6. (aviation) The horizontal positioning of a biplane, triplane, or multiplane's wings in relation to one another.

Translations

Verb

stagger (third-person singular simple present staggers, present participle staggering, simple past and past participle staggered)

1. Sway unsteadily, reel, or totter.
   1. (intransitive) In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter.

      She began to stagger across the room.

      • Deep was the wound; he staggered with the blow.

   2. (transitive) To cause to reel or totter.

      The powerful blow of his opponent's fist staggered the boxer.
   3. (intransitive) To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail.
      • 1708, Joseph Addison, The Present State of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation

        The enemy staggers.

2. Doubt, waver, be shocked.
   1. (intransitive) To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate.

      • He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.

   2. (transitive) To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock.

      He will stagger the committee when he presents his report.

      • 1640, James Howell, England's Teares for the present Warres

        whosoever will be curious to read the future story of this intricate war , if it be possible to compile a story of it , he will find himself much staggered.

      • 1796, Edmund Burke, a letter to a noble lord

        Grants to the house of Russell were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility.

3. (transitive) Have multiple groups doing the same thing in a uniform fashion, but starting at different, evenly-spaced, times or places (attested from 1856).
   1. To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.
   2. To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next.

      We will stagger the starting positions for the race on the oval track.

   3. To schedule in intervals.

      We will stagger the run so the faster runners can go first, then the joggers.

Translations

See also

• bestagger
• staggeringly
• staggers

References

Anagrams

• gagster, gargets, taggers