Dictionary

shufti en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈʃʌf.ti/ (UK, US)
• /ˈʃʊf.ti/ (UK, US)

Etymology

UK 1940s, originally military slang. From Egyptian Arabic شُفْتِ، شُفْتِي (šufti, “have you seen?”, literally “you saw”), a conjugation of شَاف (šāf, “to see”).

Meanings

1. (UK, slang) A brief glance.
   • "Caucasus mountains," said the driver. "I think. Let's have a shufti at the map." 1992, Tom Holt, Tall Stories, Orbit, published 2004, page 276:
   • 2005, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Raincoast Books ; Bloomsbury, page 431, "When we come face to face with one [a ghost] down a dark alley we're going to be having a shufti to see if it's solid, aren't we, we're not going to be asking, 'Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?'"
   • "Perkins, we are asking you to be that one man. I want you to lay down your life, Perkins. We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war. Get up in a crate, Perkins, pop over to Bremen, take a shufti, don't come back. Goodbye, Perkins. God, I wish I was going too." 1961, Peter Cook, Beyond the Fringe (AfterMyth of War):

Forms

Deriveds

shuftiscope · shufti kite

Synonyms

glance