shuffling

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of shuffle

noun

1. The act or motion of one who shuffles.

   “As I lay waiting I could hear a sort of murmurousness beyond the door. It seemed composed of whimperings, slitherings, and shufflings, punctuated occasionally by a raised voice in the distance.”

   “Jane Gibson taught the cast the movements of the various creatures they were representing: the linear shufflings of the hedgehogs, the dozy lollopings of the rabbits, the sinuous dartings of the weasel and so on.”

2. The noise created by something moving about.

   “He would also have been exposed to the coughings and shufflings, comings and goings, questions and answers, wailings and slammings, snivellings and sneezings, etc., which figured so prominently in the reference room […]”

3. (dated)Trickery.

   “Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set out all his shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he was desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he was also inconceivably a coward) […]”

adj

1. Moving with a dragging, scraping step.

   “This world I do renounce, and in your sights / Shake patiently my great affliction off.”

2. Evasive.

   “a shuffling excuse”