riff

noun

1. A repeated melody line in a song, usually instrumental but sometimes vocal.

   “Listen to one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time!”

   “Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child has been named the greatest guitar riff of all time, 41 years after it was recorded, in a poll by website Music Radar.”

2. A clever or witty remark.

   “Pope Francis delivers off-the-cuff riff on family life”

3. A variation on something.

   “Both the Orbit and the Pinnacle are riffs on an idea sketched out in 1917 by Vladimir Tatlin for a monument to international communism.”

   “Grok’s companions are a riff on the idea of AI assistants or agents, which some people use for friendship or romance in place of or in addition to human partners.”

4. A spoof.

   “The creative team has experience with spoofing: Both [Paul] Rudd and [Amy] Poehler had parts in [David] Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer, a hysterically irreverent riff on ’80s summer-camp comedies.”

5. (archaic)The belly; the bowels.

verb

1. To improvise in the performance or practice of an art, especially by expanding on or making novel use of traditional themes.

   “She riffed on the Olympic judges, the bobsled team, then ad-libbed with a woman drinking a martini at the front table.”

   “They were great architects deeply enmeshed in an urban chain of innovation; Wright riffed on Sullivan's idea of form following function, and Sullivan riffed on Jenney, and Jenney relied on the fireproofing innovations of Peter B. Wight.”

   “For Holyoake a strategic advantage of his newly coined label was the way it riffed on the term 'secular' in the Western Christian imaginary.”

   “He riffed an upward arpeggio and in a smooth, slightly neutered baritone began singing “Baby Face.””

   “In particular, Ralph Breaks The Internet riffs a lot on its enormous parent company, from that princess bit to the Sterling Holloway tone that new good-luck charm Alan Tudyk brings to his vocal performance to a goof on the de facto parenting advice that’s at the heart of so many Pixar movies.”

2. To riffle.

   “He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wellworn deck of cards. He hated Saturday duty. He cut the deck and riffed the two halves together.”

   “He was gracious enough to thank her, and briefly riffed through the pages before putting it in his briefcase.”

   “The man reached inside a pocket of the black broadcloth coat he'd draped over the back of his chair and withdrew a deck of cards, which he fanned in one hand, then bent back and riffed rapidly into the palm of his other.”

3. To tell jokes over a movie or similar performance.

   “Most MSTers confine their "riffing" to original fan fiction rather than scripts from corporate-owned entertainment properties, which renders such twice-removed MSTing somewhat toothless: the cannibalizing parody of a pastiche.”

   “A bad sci-fi movie is often ludicrous and silly and ripe for riffing. A bad comedy is usually just dull.”

name

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of Rif (“mountains in Morocco”).
2. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of Resource Interchange File Format.