What does "macguffin" mean?

A plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.

What is a synonym for "macguffin"?

Common synonyms include: chingadera, chummy, dingbat, dingus, doober, doodad.

Macguffin

//məˈɡʌf.ɪn// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.
"" […] But we wound up realizing you really can't top yourself. You just tell a different story and hope the new MacGuffin is as compelling as the last MacGuffin.""
2
(film) a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot wordnet

Proper Noun

1
A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms

chingadera chummy dingbat dingus doober doodad

Example

More examples

"" […] But we wound up realizing you really can't top yourself. You just tell a different story and hope the new MacGuffin is as compelling as the last MacGuffin.""

Etymology

Used by Alfred Hitchcock, as an arbitrary Scottish surname. The actual name comes from Ulster: Mc- (“son of”) + Irish dubh (“black”) + Irish Fionn (literally “fairheaded”). See also Wikipedia's MacGuffin § History and use.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.