a frivolous or flippant style of treating a subject.
Origin: 1750–60; < French, derivative of persifler to banter, equivalent to per-per- + siffler to whistle, hiss < Late Latinsifilāre, for Latinsībilāre; see sibilant, -age
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
1757, from Fr. persiflage, from persifler "to banter," from L. per- "through" + Fr. siffler "to whistle, hiss," from collateral form of L. sibilare "to hiss," possibly of imitative origin.