the.com/whiff

means A faint trace of a smell carried briefly through the air — or, by extension, a slight hint or a quick, failed attempt at something.

from From Middle English 'weffe,' a puff or breath, almost certainly imitative — a word shaped to sound like the soft exhalation it names, much as 'puff' and 'whiff' breathe out as you say them. The sense of 'a slight smell' came first; the baseball sense of 'whiff' as a swing-and-miss is a later figurative leap, the bat passing through nothing but air.