shuffle

UK/ˈʃʌfəl/US/ˈʃʌfəl/

verbB1+4 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,890 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: shuffled, shuffling, shuffles

Shuffle a pack of cards and you mix them so that nobody knows what is coming: split the pack in two, push the halves into each other, do it again. The word is the sound it makes.

The other shuffle is a walk. You shuffle when you are tired or cold or very old, feet never quite leaving the floor, a slow dry scrape down the corridor. Papers get shuffled on a desk, ministers get shuffled between jobs in a reshuffle, and your phone shuffles the songs so the album comes out in the wrong order. It is a word for small movement rather than big: you shuffle sideways along a row of seats, and you shuffle in your chair when a question makes you uncomfortable. There is a noun too — give the deck one more shuffle.

Definitions of shuffle

1verbshuffleTo mix playing cards into a random order.B1+~34%
“Shuffle the cards properly and deal seven each.”
synonyms: mix
2verbsoundTo walk without lifting your feet properly off the ground.B2~32%
“He shuffled across the kitchen in his slippers.”
3verbrearrangeTo move papers, objects or people about into different positions.B1~31%
“The manager shuffled his team around after the defeat.”
synonyms: rearrange
4nounshortOne mixing of the cards, or one short dragging walk.B1~3%
“Give the deck one more shuffle before you deal.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 131 sentences found in the wild and placed 70 of them on a sense (61 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

get lost in the shuffle — be forgotten while everything is being moved about
shuffle your feet — move them about awkwardly, because you are embarrassed

Also practised as

verbTo move with feet dragging along the floor.

Where it comes from

Shuffle began as the same word as scuffle, and it is built on shove — a frequentative, which is English's way of saying shove over and over again. That is exactly what shuffling is: small repeated shoves. Cards shoved into each other, feet shoved along the floor.

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Games & Toys, Ways of Moving

First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

shuffle in the wild

Other shuffling methods include the Hindu shuffle, commonly used in Asia, and the pile shuffle, where cards are dealt into piles and then stacked.
Shuffling
The Melbourne shuffle is a rave dance that developed in Melbourne, Australia, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Melbourne shuffle
With the exception of 2020, Premier Ford had carried out one major cabinet shuffle each year since 2018, most often in June.
Ford ministry
The most recent major shuffle took place in March 2025, shortly after the 2025 general election.
Ford ministry
Trudeau carried out four major cabinet shuffles: one in 2018, one in 2021, one in 2023, and another in 2024.
29th Canadian Ministry

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of shuffle

1verbshuffleTo mix playing cards into a random order.B1+~34%

“Shuffle the cards properly and deal seven each.”

synonyms: mix

2verbsoundTo walk without lifting your feet properly off the ground.B2~32%

“He shuffled across the kitchen in his slippers.”

3verbrearrangeTo move papers, objects or people about into different positions.B1~31%

“The manager shuffled his team around after the defeat.”

synonyms: rearrange

4nounshortOne mixing of the cards, or one short dragging walk.B1~3%

“Give the deck one more shuffle before you deal.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 131 sentences found in the wild and placed 70 of them on a sense (61 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.