ruffle someone's feathers
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To annoy or upset someone
Literally: disturb bird's feathers
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Birdman Reed will not duck the issue David Hopps on the Aylesbury ‘ Rambo’ who is set to ruffle Northampton's feathers.
Not that we've got anything against the group, you understand, but certain other guests would have ruffled our feathers, so it was in everyone's best interests that we stayed away.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “ruffle someone's feathers” mean?
To annoy or upset someone Literally: disturb bird's feathers
Is “ruffle someone's feathers” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.