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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

Murphy.

A common surname from Irish, the anglicized form of Irish Ó Murchadha

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/ˈmɜɹfi/General-American/ˈmɜːfi/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A common surname from Irish, the anglicized form of Irish Ó Murchadha

  2. A unisex given name transferred from the surname, of occasional usage.

  3. A number of places in the United States: A census-designated place, the county seat of Owyhee County, Idaho.

  4. A number of places in the United States: A census-designated place in Jefferson County, Missouri.

  5. A number of places in the United States: A town, the county seat of Cherokee County, North Carolina.

  6. A number of places in the United States: A city in Collin County, Texas.

  7. A number of places in the United States: An unincorporated community in Buchanan County, Virginia.

  8. A number of places in the United States: An unincorporated community in Barbour County, West Virginia.

  9. A town in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina.

Where this word comes from

From Irish Ó Murchadha (“descendant of Murrough”), Mac Murchaidh (“Son of Murrough”), etc. See Muircath.

verb/ˈmɜɹfi/General-American/ˈmɜːfi/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To swindle by means of the Murphy game confidence trick.

    slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Irish Ó Murchadha (“descendant of Murrough”), Mac Murchaidh (“Son of Murrough”), etc. See Muircath.

noun/ˈmɜɹfi/General-American/ˈmɜːfi/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Ellipsis of Murphy game (“type of confidence trick”).

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis · slang
Where this word comes from

From Irish Ó Murchadha (“descendant of Murrough”), Mac Murchaidh (“Son of Murrough”), etc. See Muircath.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.