To miss an attack entirely — a swing that touches nothing — borrowed from baseball into fighting games by the late 1990s and from there into shooters, where a whiffed shot at point-blank range is the standard reason a round was lost. The record's entry for the miss with a sound effect.
I remember when Whiff was still a niche thing — 1999 — and you could use it without a footnote. The footnote arrived about six weeks later and never left.
Correction: in fighting games a whiff is a technical term, and 'whiff punishing' is a skill; in shooters it is only ever an admission.
Seen in the wild on a school noticeboard — a teacher's handwritten poster with Whiff on it, followed by a smiley. Genuinely unsure whether this is the birth or the death.
Where did you see it, and when? A date and a source that still resolves.
