"ruffle some feathers" meaning in English

See ruffle some feathers in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: ruffles some feathers [present, singular, third-person], ruffling some feathers [participle, present], ruffled some feathers [participle, past], ruffled some feathers [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=ruffle some feathers}} ruffle some feathers (third-person singular simple present ruffles some feathers, present participle ruffling some feathers, simple past and past participle ruffled some feathers)
  1. (figuratively) To cause a disturbance; to arouse resentment, anger, or concern. Tags: figuratively Synonyms: ruffle a few feathers, ruffle feathers Related terms: ruffle someone's feathers, make waves, poke the bear
    Sense id: en-ruffle_some_feathers-en-verb-UmwDOOM4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for ruffle some feathers meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "ruffles some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ruffling some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ruffled some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ruffled some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "ruffle some feathers"
      },
      "expansion": "ruffle some feathers (third-person singular simple present ruffles some feathers, present participle ruffling some feathers, simple past and past participle ruffled some feathers)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Any frank discussion of politics is sure to ruffle some feathers.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1976 August 28, David P. Brill, “Talking Politics”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 9, page 11",
          "text": "Plainclothes vice squad detectives played the [gay] bars and waited to be propositioned, or asked out, or something, and bang! According to those old enough to remember […] the police found themselves arresting legislators, employees of the mayor's office, and even some off-duty cops. So many prominent feathers were ruffled that it was decided that Beantown's police had better tend to more important, but less personally risky, endeavors.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 September 30, Hannah Murphy, “The wildest job in Silicon Valley”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 17",
          "text": "Asking multiple territorial sales teams to share ideas and resources ruffled feathers.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cause a disturbance; to arouse resentment, anger, or concern."
      ],
      "id": "en-ruffle_some_feathers-en-verb-UmwDOOM4",
      "links": [
        [
          "disturbance",
          "disturbance"
        ],
        [
          "arouse",
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        ],
        [
          "anger",
          "anger"
        ],
        [
          "concern",
          "concern"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) To cause a disturbance; to arouse resentment, anger, or concern."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "ruffle someone's feathers"
        },
        {
          "word": "make waves"
        },
        {
          "word": "poke the bear"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ruffle a few feathers"
        },
        {
          "word": "ruffle feathers"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ruffle some feathers"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "ruffles some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ruffling some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ruffled some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ruffled some feathers",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "ruffle some feathers"
      },
      "expansion": "ruffle some feathers (third-person singular simple present ruffles some feathers, present participle ruffling some feathers, simple past and past participle ruffled some feathers)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "ruffle someone's feathers"
    },
    {
      "word": "make waves"
    },
    {
      "word": "poke the bear"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Any frank discussion of politics is sure to ruffle some feathers.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1976 August 28, David P. Brill, “Talking Politics”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 9, page 11",
          "text": "Plainclothes vice squad detectives played the [gay] bars and waited to be propositioned, or asked out, or something, and bang! According to those old enough to remember […] the police found themselves arresting legislators, employees of the mayor's office, and even some off-duty cops. So many prominent feathers were ruffled that it was decided that Beantown's police had better tend to more important, but less personally risky, endeavors.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 September 30, Hannah Murphy, “The wildest job in Silicon Valley”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 17",
          "text": "Asking multiple territorial sales teams to share ideas and resources ruffled feathers.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cause a disturbance; to arouse resentment, anger, or concern."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "disturbance",
          "disturbance"
        ],
        [
          "arouse",
          "arouse"
        ],
        [
          "anger",
          "anger"
        ],
        [
          "concern",
          "concern"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) To cause a disturbance; to arouse resentment, anger, or concern."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "ruffle a few feathers"
    },
    {
      "word": "ruffle feathers"
    }
  ],
  "word": "ruffle some feathers"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.