What is the answer to the crossword clue "kerfuffle"?

There is more than one. 17 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is STIR. Five is STORM. This clue is a near twin of commotion and takes most of the same answers, so if a crossing rules out your first choice the whole list is worth reading.

How many letters is the answer to "kerfuffle"?

Anything from 4 to 14. The length with the most candidates is 7. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.

Crossword clue

Kerfuffle crossword clue

17 words in our dictionary can answer the crossword clue "kerfuffle", from 4 letters up to 14, grouped below by the length of your slot.

Written by Blake Boege

Answers by length

Everything below fits the clue. What separates them is length, running from 4 letters to 14, so find your row and ignore the rest.

Letters	Answers
4	stir
5	storm
6	splash tumult uproar
7	flutter garboil tempest turmoil
8	incident upheaval
9	commotion
10	disruption convulsion earthquake
11	disturbance
14	tumultuousness

What this list looks like

4 of these are 7 letters, which is more than any other length manages.

Setters reach for 4-letter answers constantly, and here that means STIR.

The list mixes 4 synonyms with 13 examples of the thing itself.

Which one does the setter mean?

Four squares is STIR. Five is STORM. This clue is a near twin of commotion and takes most of the same answers, so if a crossing rules out your first choice the whole list is worth reading.

How these differ

Kerfuffle is the mildest word in its family and always faintly comic: a kerfuffle is a fuss that will be over by teatime. STIR and SPLASH carry the same lightness, and both also mean the attention something attracts rather than the disturbance itself. TUMULT, UPROAR and TURMOIL are heavier and involve real disorder. UPHEAVAL and CONVULSION are heavier still and usually describe institutions rather than afternoons. The word itself is Scots, from a root meaning to disarrange, and only became common in England in the last fifty years.

Still stuck? Filter by the letters you have

Got a crossing letter? The word finder searches the same dictionary as this page, with a box for the first letter, the last, and anything in between.

Where these answers come from

These came out of a dictionary. Every word above is recorded by WordNet as meaning “kerfuffle” or as naming a kind of it, and each one is in the 173,000-wordlist this site searches. We hold no newspaper's answer key and reproduce no published crossword.

Common questions

What is the answer to the crossword clue "kerfuffle"?: There is more than one. 17 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is STIR. Five is STORM. This clue is a near twin of commotion and takes most of the same answers, so if a crossing rules out your first choice the whole list is worth reading.
How many letters is the answer to "kerfuffle"?: Anything from 4 to 14. The length with the most candidates is 7. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.