Word.ws English Dictionary

ruffle someone's feathers

ruffle someone's feathers verb: to unease, cause discomfort to someone.

Verb

ruffle someone's feathers (third-person singular simple present ruffles someone's feathers, present participle ruffling someone's feathers, simple past and past participle ruffled someone's feathers)

  1. (idiomatic) To unease, cause discomfort to someone.
    • Sutton and David Templeton both had efforts just off target as Hearts' tactics of high-tempo, pressing football ruffled the English side's feathers.2012 August 23, Alasdair Lamont, “Hearts 0-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport
    • The Spanish newspaper El País suggested that Trump’s feathers had been ruffled by a video at the same meeting, showing Meloni appearing to scold him.2026 July 1, Riccardo Alcaro, “Why Meloni has hit back hard against Trump and his ‘made up’ photo claim”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Synonyms of ruffle someone's feathers

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of ruffle someone's feathers

third-person singular presentruffles someone's feathers
present participleruffling someone's feathers
past participleruffled someone's feathers
pastruffled someone's feathers

Questions about ruffle someone's feathers

What does ruffle someone's feathers mean?
Ruffle someone's feathers means to unease, cause discomfort to someone.
What part of speech is ruffle someone's feathers?
Ruffle someone's feathers is a verb.
What is the past tense of ruffle someone's feathers?
The past tense of ruffle someone's feathers is ruffled someone's feathers.

Words near ruffle someone's feathers in the dictionary

  1. ruffle
  2. ruffle a few feathers
  3. ruffle any feathers
  4. ruffle feathers
  5. ruffle some feathers
  6. ruffle someone's feathers
  7. ruffle up
  8. ruffleable
  9. ruffled
  10. ruffled a few feathers
  11. ruffled any feathers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ruffle someone's feathers (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-ruffle someone's feathers.ogg.

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