kerfuffle
/kɚˈfʌfəl/noun, verb
kerfuffle is spelled K-E-R-F-U-F-F-L-E. The wrong spelling people search most is cafuffle: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 132 of all searches for the word. Kerfuffle is a noun meaning “A disorderly outburst, disturbance, commotion, or tumult”. The plural of kerfuffle is kerfuffles.
How many letters and syllables are in kerfuffle?
| Letters | 9: K-E-R-F-U-F-F-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 5 million words; the 66,686th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, cafuffle, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell kerfuffle?
Kerfuffle is spelled K-E-R-F-U-F-F-L-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 88 of the searches for kerfuffle in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is kerfuffle?
Kerfuffle appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 66,686th 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).
How do you pronounce kerfuffle?
- UK /kəˈfʌfəl/
- US /kɚˈfʌfəl/
Kerfuffle has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-kerfuffle.ogg, En-au-kerfuffle.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of kerfuffle
- kerfuffles plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- cufuffle
- cuffuffle
- curfuffle
- gefuffle
- kafuffle
- kerfluff
- kerfluffle
- kurfuffle
- fuffle
- kerfuffling participle, present
- kerfuffled participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does kerfuffle mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
CommonwealthinformalA disorderly outburst, disturbance, commotion, or tumult.
verb
- 1
CommonwealthIrelandUKinformalTo make a disorderly outburst or commotion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Kerfuffle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense disorderly outburst:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | désordre, tumulte, brouhaha |
| German | Wirbel, Aufruhr, Theater, Durcheinander |
| Portuguese | bafafá, distúrbio, tumulto |
| Spanish | disturbio, descalzaperros, pitote |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does kerfuffle come from?
Probably from Scots curfuffle, equivalent to ker- + fuffle, or related to Irish cíor thuathail (“confusion, bewilderment”). Similar to modern Welsh cythrwfl (“uproar, trouble, agitation”)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).