furphy
fur·phy/ˈfɜɹfi/noun
furphy is a noun meaning “An erroneous or improbable story; also, a rumour” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-U-R-P-H-Y and has 2 syllables (fur·phy), and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of furphy is furphies.
What does furphy mean?
noun
- 1
AustraliaslangAn erroneous or improbable story; also, a rumour.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce furphy?
- UK /ˈfɜːfi/
- US /ˈfɜɹfi/
Furphy has 2 syllables, split fur·phy in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-furphy.ogg, En-au-furphy.oga, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-furphy.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of furphy
- furphies plural
- furfie
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is furphy?
Furphy appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does furphy come from?
From Furphy (a surname), from the firm of J[ohn] Furphy and Sons. An often-repeated etymology is that during World War I (1914–1918), Australian soldiers in Europe and the Middle East often stood around water carts manufactured by the firm and emblazoned with its name to talk and exchange news and rumours.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).