riffs

5 definitions • 5 examples

in jazz or popular music, a tune that continues or appears regularly in a piece of music while other parts change or are added:

The song is punctuated by long guitar riffs.

something that is slightly different to the usual form:

Pistachio-parmesan truffles are a fun riff on those nut-covered cheese balls your mum used to make.

His ingenious riff on the original script delights and provokes.

in jazz or popular music, to play a short, repeated series of notes :

The singer growled over acoustic guitar while his bandmates riffed on banjo, ukulele, and fiddle.

to speak for a long time on a particular subject, especially in a humorous way:

He strutted and riffed on topics from global warming to parenthood.

(in popular music) a simple tune that is used as a pattern for creating more complicated musical patterns