Etymology
1. 13c.,
weffe "foul scent or odor," of imitative origin. Modern form became popular late 16c. with tobacco smoking, probably influenced by
whiffle "blow in gusts or puffs" (1568). The verb in the baseball slang sense "to swing at a ball and miss" first recorded 1913.
2. The noun is possibly:
3. * partly a variant of Middle English wef, weffe (“bad smell, stench, stink; exhalation; vapour; tendency of something to go bad (?)”) [and other forms], possibly a variant of either:
4. ** waf, waif, waife (“odour, scent”), possibly from waven (“to move to and fro, sway, wave; to stray, wander; to move in a weaving manner; (figuratively) to hesitate, vacillate”), from Old English wafian (“to wave”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”); or
5. ** wef (“a blow, stroke”), from weven (“to travel, wander; to move to and fro, flutter, waver; to blow something away, waft; to cause something to move; to fall; to cut deeply; to sever; to give up, yield; to give deference to; to avoid; to afflict, trouble; to beckon, signal”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Old English wefan (“to weave”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”)), or from wǣfan (see bewǣfan, ymbwǣfan); and
6. * partly onomatopoeic.
7. Noun sense 6 (“name of a number of flatfish”) is possibly derived from sense 1 (“brief, gentle breeze; a light gust of air”), sense 4 (“small quantity of cloud, smoke, vapour, etc.”), and other such senses.
8. The verb and adjective are derived from the noun. Verb sense 2.6 (“to catch fish by dragging a handline near the surface of the water from a moving boat”) is possibly derived from sense 1.1 (“to carry or convey (something) by, or as by, a whiff or puff of air”), sense 2.2 (“to be carried, or move as if carried, by a puff of air”), and other such senses.
9. The interjection is derived from noun sense 7.4 (“a sound like that of air passing through a small opening; a short or soft whistle”). See: Old English '
wafian', Old English '
wefan'.