Kerfuffle is an informal word that refers to a disturbance or fuss typically caused by a dispute or conflict.

// The reclassification of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet caused quite a kerfuffle among astronomy lovers.

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“I find it fascinating that the media landscape and the world of storytelling has so many examples of Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites and Don Drapers, and I am hard pressed to think of as many characters who are women who are given the opportunity to be ... terrible people and to still get their story told. I think that because people are unaccustomed to that, it’s a little bit more shocking, and it’s clearly having an impact on the fandom. I’ve taken a step back from Reddit and social media, but enough of it gets through to me that I am at least aware that there is some kerfuffle happening on this front.” — Ashley Lyle, quoted in Teen Vogue, 11 Apr. 2025

Fuffle is an old Scottish verb that means “to muss” or “to throw into disarray”—in other words, to (literally) ruffle someone’s (figurative) feathers. The addition of car-, possibly from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning “wrong” or “awkward,” didn’t change its meaning much. In the 19th century carfuffle, with its variant curfuffle, became a noun, which in the 20th century was embraced by a broader population of English speakers and standardized to kerfuffle, referring to a more figurative feather-ruffling. There is some kerfuffle among language historians over how the altered spelling came to be favored. One theory holds that it might have been influenced by onomatopoeic words like kerplunk that imitate the sound of a falling object hitting a surface.