Word.ws English Dictionary

ruffling someone's feathers

ruffling someone's feathers is the present participle of ruffle someone's feathers.

Meaning of ruffle someone's feathers

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

Questions about ruffling someone's feathers

What is ruffling someone's feathers the present participle of?
Ruffling someone's feathers is the present participle of ruffle someone's feathers.

Words near ruffling someone's feathers in the dictionary

  1. ruffling
  2. ruffling a few feathers
  3. ruffling any feathers
  4. ruffling feathers
  5. ruffling some feathers
  6. ruffling someone's feathers
  7. ruffling up
  8. rufflings
  9. ruffly
  10. ruffmans
  11. ruffneck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ruffling someone's feathers (page history and authors); 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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