ruffle someone's feathers
"ruffle-someone-s-feathers" is a 22-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ruffle someone's feathers” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 25
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To unease, cause discomfort to someone.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ruffle-someone-s-feather · ruffle someone's feathers · English
ruffle someone's feathers · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 25 letters
- VOW-9 9 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "R" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ruffle someone's feathers |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 25 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ruffle someone's feathers” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ruffle someone's feathers is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To unease, cause discomfort to someone.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for ruffle someone's feathers in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is ruffle someone's feathers, spelled R-U-F-F-L-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E-'-S- -F-E-A-T-H-E-R-S.
Definition
- 1To unease, cause discomfort to someone.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how ruffle someone's feathers appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Sutton and David Templeton both had efforts just off target as Hearts' tactics of high-tempo, pressing football ruffled the English side's feathers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.