Word.ws English Dictionary

MacGuffin

UK/məˈɡʌf.ɪn/

MacGuffin noun: a plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.

Noun

MacGuffin (plural MacGuffins)

  1. A plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.
    • " […] But we wound up realizing you really can't top yourself. You just tell a different story and hope the new MacGuffin is as compelling as the last MacGuffin."2000, Steven Spielberg, Lester D. Friedman, Brent Notbohm, Steven Spielberg: Interviews
    • A paleontologist lately returned from an expedition to Wyoming, where he unearthed the bones of the first brontosaurus (and supplied guns to the Indians on behalf of the Foreign Office, which had succeeded in its policy of balkanizing the North American continent) Mallory comes into possession of...2005, Thomas M. Disch, On SF

Proper noun

MacGuffin (plural MacGuffins)

  1. A surname.

Forms of MacGuffin

Noun
pluralMacGuffins
alternative formMcGuffin
Proper noun
pluralMacGuffins

Origin of MacGuffin

Used by Alfred Hitchcock, as an arbitrary Scottish surname. The actual name comes from Ulster: Mc- (“son of”) + Irish dubh (“black”) + Irish Fionn (literally “fairheaded”). See also Wikipedia's MacGuffin § History and use.

Questions about MacGuffin

What does MacGuffin mean?
MacGuffin means a plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.
What part of speech is MacGuffin?
MacGuffin can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce MacGuffin?
MacGuffin is pronounced /məˈɡʌf.ɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of MacGuffin?
The plural of MacGuffin is MacGuffins.

Words near MacGuffin in the dictionary

  1. MacGraw
  2. MacGraws
  3. MacGregor
  4. MacGregors
  5. MacGuff
  6. MacGuffin
  7. MacGuffinite
  8. MacGuffins
  9. macgyver
  10. macgyvered
  11. MacGyvering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: MacGuffin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-MacGuffin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “MacGuffin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/macguffin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.