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kerfuffle (kuhr-FUH-fuhl) - n., (inform.) (chiefly British) a commotion, disorderly outburst, disturbance, commotion, tumult.
This is chiefly British usage, but for what it's worth it is nativized to my own idiolect. Can also be verbed in Scottish usage -- for this is indeed a word of Scottish origin. Until the 1960s it had a variety of spellings, including curfuffle, carfuffle, cafuffle, and gefuffle, before settling on the initial k- version, from Scottish Gaelic car, twist, turn + fuffle, to disarrangem, of unknown origin. There are cognates in Irish Gaelic cior thual and Welsh cythrwfl.
---L.
This is chiefly British usage, but for what it's worth it is nativized to my own idiolect. Can also be verbed in Scottish usage -- for this is indeed a word of Scottish origin. Until the 1960s it had a variety of spellings, including curfuffle, carfuffle, cafuffle, and gefuffle, before settling on the initial k- version, from Scottish Gaelic car, twist, turn + fuffle, to disarrangem, of unknown origin. There are cognates in Irish Gaelic cior thual and Welsh cythrwfl.
---L.
