ruffle

noun

1. Any gathered or curled strip of fabric added as trim or decoration.

   “She loved the dress with the lace ruffle at the hem.”

   “His dress was splendid; his hands glittered with rings, his snuff-box was covered with diamonds, and his ruffles were of the finest Mechlin lace.”

   “Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.”

2. Disturbance; agitation; commotion.

   “to put the mind in a ruffle”

3. A low, vibrating beat of a drum, quieter than a roll; a ruff.
4. The connected series of large egg capsules, or oothecae, of several species of American marine gastropods of the genus Fulgur.

verb

1. (transitive)To make a ruffle in; to curl or flute, as an edge of fabric.

   “Ruffle the end of the cuff.”

2. (transitive)To disturb; especially, to cause to flutter.

   “The wind ruffled the papers.”

   “Her sudden volley of insults ruffled his composure.”

   “She […]smoothed the ruffled seas.”

   “the fantastic revelries […] that so often ruffled the placid bosom of the Nile”

   “But, ever after, the small violence done / Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, / As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long / A little bitter pool about a stone / On the bare coast.”

3. (intransitive)To grow rough, boisterous, or turbulent.

   “The night comes on, and the bleak winds / Do sorely ruffle.”

4. (intransitive)To become disordered; to play loosely; to flutter.

   “On his right shoulder his thick mane ', / Ruffles at speed, and dances in the wind.”

5. (intransitive)To be rough; to jar; to be in contention; hence, to put on airs; to swagger.

   “They would ruffle with jurors.”

   “gallants who ruffled in silk and embroidery”

   “He was engaged in finding the steward, and in aiding him to cloak his mistress; then with a ruffling air, a new acquirement, which he had picked up since he came to Paris, he made a way for her through the crowd.”

6. To make into a ruff; to draw or contract into puckers, plaits, or folds; to wrinkle.
7. To erect in a ruff, as feathers.

   “[T]he barge with oar and sail / Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan / That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, / Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood / With swarthy webs.”

8. To beat with the ruff or ruffle, as a drum.
9. To throw together in a disorderly manner.

   “Within a thicket I reposed; when round / I ruffled up fall'n leaves in heap; and found, / Let fall from heaven, a sleep interminate.”