cafouiller
French, verb/ka.fu.je/
cafouiller is spelled C-A-F-O-U-I-L-L-E-R (10 letters) and appears about once in every 81 million words in written French, the 282,260th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Cafouiller is a French verb meaning “to play up, be in a mess, fall apart” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “S’embrouiller”.
What does cafouiller mean in English?
verb
- 1
to play up, be in a mess, fall apart
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. S’embrouiller. 2. Avoir des ratés et menacer de caler, en parlant d’un moteur à explosion. 3. Chercher des histoires.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of cafouiller
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- cafouillant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- cafouillé participle past
- cafouille first-person indicative present
- cafouilles indicative present second-person
- cafouillons first-person indicative plural
- cafouillez indicative plural present
- cafouillent indicative plural present
- cafouillais first-person imperfect indicative
- cafouillait imperfect indicative singular
- cafouillions first-person imperfect indicative
- cafouilliez imperfect indicative plural
- cafouillaient imperfect indicative plural
- cafouillai first-person historic indicative
- cafouillas historic indicative past
- cafouilla historic indicative past
- cafouillâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce cafouiller?
- /ka.fu.je/
- \ka.fu.je\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is cafouiller in French?
cafouiller appears about once in every 81 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).