Flurry

How to spell flurry

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce flurry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does flurry mean?

1. nounA sudden short burst of activity, excitement, or commotion.
2. nounA brief, light fall of snow carried on the wind.
3. verbTo move or come in a confused, agitated rush.

Flurry in a sentence

• noun

  The announcement set off a flurry of phone calls across the office.

• noun

  A sudden flurry of snow dusted the windscreen on the drive home.

• verb

  Leaves began to flurry across the path as the wind picked up.

• noun

  There was a brief flurry of interest in the property before it sold.

• noun

  The forecast warned of a passing flurry rather than heavy drifts.

• verb

  Shoppers tend to flurry toward the exits when the alarm sounds.

Where does flurry come from?

Language of origin: Other

Flurry is a relatively young English word, first recorded in the late 1600s, and its origins are usefully described as imitative or echoic rather than borrowed from another language. It seems to grow from an older verb 'flurr', meaning to scatter or to fly up in a confused rush, and it was almost certainly reinforced by the sound and sense of nearby words such as 'flutter', 'flaw' (an old term for a sudden gust), and 'hurry'. The earliest uses describe a sudden agitation or commotion, and the application to a light, brief fall of snow followed naturally, since a snow flurry is exactly that sort of quick, swirling disturbance. Because the word was shaped by sound rather than by a single foreign root, its spelling is best remembered through that family of double-r, agitation words: 'hurry', 'scurry', 'blurry', and 'flurry' all share the same -urry ending. That rhyming cluster is the safest anchor for getting the spelling right.

How the word is built

• flurr- (probably imitative, suggesting a sudden scattering or fluttering)
• -y (noun/verb suffix)