Crossword Dictionary
riff
A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accompaniment of a musical composition. Though riffs are most often found in rock music, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, classical music is also sometimes based on a riff, such as Ravel's Boléro. Riffs can be as simple as a tenor saxophone honking a simple, catchy rhythmic figure, or as complex as the riff-based variations in the head arrangements played by the Count Basie Orchestra.
David Brackett (1999) defines riffs as "short melodic phrases", while Richard Middleton (1999) defines them as "short rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic figures repeated to form a structural framework". Rikky Rooksby states: "A riff is a short, repeated, memorable musical phrase, often pitched low on the guitar, which focuses much of the energy and excitement of a rock song."
Use of the term has extended to comedy, where riffing means the verbal exploration of a particular subject, thus moving the meaning away from the original jazz sense of a repeated figure that a soloist improvises over, to instead indicate the improvisation itself—improvising on a melody or progression as one would improvise on a subject by extending a singular thought, idea or inspiration into a bit, or routine.
In jazz, blues and R&B, riffs are often used as the starting point for longer compositions. Charlie Parker used riff on "Now's the Time". Blues guitarist John Lee Hooker used riff on "Boogie Chillen" in 1948. The riff from Charlie Parker's bebop number "Now's the Time" (1945) re-emerged four years later as the R&B dance hit "The Hucklebuck".
riffraff
rabble, riffraff, ragtag, ragtag and bobtail - n
disparaging terms for the common people
synonyms
chaff, deadwood, debris, dreck (also drek), dross, dust, effluvium (also effluvia), garbage, junk, litter, offal, offscouring, raffle, refuse, rubbish, scrap, spilth, trash, truck, waste
in a sentence
Try not to associate with that riffraff.
the sight of piles and piles of riffraff at the town dump was a sobering reminder that we are indeed a society of consumers
etymology
also riff-raff, late 15c., "persons of disreputable character or low degree," from earlier rif and raf (Anglo-French rif et raf) "one and all, everybody; every scrap, everything," also "sweepings, refuse, things of small value" (mid-14c.), from Old French rif et raf, from rifler "to spoil, strip" (see rifle (v.)). Second element from raffler "carry off," related to rafle "plundering," or from raffer "to snatch, to sweep together" (see raffle (n.)); the word presumably made more for suggestive half-rhyming alliteration than for sense.
The meaning "refuse, scum, or rabble of a community" is by 1540s. In 15c. collections of terms of association, a group of young men or boys was a raffle of knaves.