flurry
Americannoun
-
flurries
plural
-
a light, brief shower of snow.
-
sudden commotion, excitement, or confusion; nervous hurry.
There was a flurry of activity before the guests arrived.
-
Stock Exchange.
-
a brief rise or fall in prices.
-
a brief, unusually heavy period of trading.
-
-
a sudden gust of wind.
verb (used with object)
-
flurries,
present (3rd person singular)
-
flurried,
past participle, past
-
flurrying
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
flurries,
present (3rd person singular)
-
flurried,
past participle, past
-
flurrying
present participle
-
(of snow) to fall or be blown in a flurry.
-
to move in an excited or agitated manner.
noun
-
a sudden commotion or burst of activity
-
a light gust of wind or rain or fall of snow
-
stock exchange a sudden brief increase in trading or fluctuation in stock prices
-
the death spasms of a harpooned whale
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
flurrysimple
-
flurriessimple
-
have flurriedperfect
-
has flurriedperfect
-
am flurryingprogressive
-
are flurryingprogressive
-
is flurryingprogressive
-
have been flurryingperfect progressive
-
has been flurryingperfect progressive
Past
-
flurriedsimple
-
had flurriedperfect
-
was flurryingprogressive
-
were flurryingprogressive
-
had been flurryingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of flurry
Explanation
A light blowing swirl of snow that's just barely falling is a flurry. There might be a brief flurry or two at the beginning of the winter, with no real heavy snow until January. You can describe a snow flurry, or a similarly swirling flurry of leaves or papers. When people act this way, rushing and fussing around, that's another kind of flurry. There might, for example, be a flurry of activity in the morning at your house as everyone hurries to get ready for the day. This sense of flurry is actually about a hundred years older than the snow meaning, which was first used in mid-1800's American English.
Vocabulary lists containing flurry
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Hands
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Doncic capped the half with a flurry on both ends.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2026
But the flurry of economic measures has raised concerns over government spending in a country whose public debt already exceeds 80 percent of GDP.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
Meanwhile, a growing number of more speculative products have helped to inspire a flurry of new ETF launches.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 10, 2026
If only Bowie was still on the field for the flurry of flick-ons he won in the first half.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
A flurry of shivers lashes through my body.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
There will be occasional flurries of action and tense situations, but it’s a leisurely watch — though not slow, in the pejorative sense.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
Still, officials from Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey made flurries of calls, including to Iran’s Araghchi and Trump’s envoy Witkoff to salvage peace efforts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
In Tokyo, the flowers reached full bloom during the weekend, entering a brief period of stunning beauty, before the petals will fall like flurries of snow.
From Barron's ● Mar. 30, 2026
And Kane's goals come in flurries - his hat-trick in the 5-0 win at Stuttgart on 6 December was his third of the season and a remarkable 11th overall since joining Bayern in 2023.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2026
It’s getting colder, and the flurries have turned into steady snow, but the sting of the wind against my face suits my mood just fine.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
But instead of gangsters and cocaine, it finds a flurried momentum in one ordinary woman’s everyday obligations, which threaten to break her when a nationwide strike throws her tenuous act off balance.
From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2023
Boston flurried at the end of the half to take a 68-56 lead into halftime.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 8, 2022
Sircar called out as doctors and nurses flurried around a 48-year-old man who had been rushed in and intubated in the emergency room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2021
City Council staffers flurried to do the same for their bosses.
From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2017
It flurried around her like snowflakes as she flipped pages, but the words were in some strange alphabet and she couldn’t read them.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
As Antoshak recalls, it was flurrying — the first snow of the season.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 7, 2022
Long lines of blue-clad fans stood queued up for beers despite an overcast sky and flakes of snow flurrying to the ground.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2018
It is a gem of a work, opening with a fantasia of flurrying 16th notes that echo snowfall.
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2017
That evening, the Humphreys drove through flurrying snow to his headquarters in Minneapolis.
From Time Magazine Archive
What if you’re both wrong? she said, her hands flurrying.
From "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
