For bracket season, we assembled a field of 32 of the silliest-sounding, most fun-to-say words to answer the question: What word puts the biggest smile on your face?
After more than 212,000 votes and five rounds of upsets, nailbiters, and Cinderella runs, you chose a champion as the most smile-inducing word of all. And the winner is… discombobulate!
Vote Now!
Final
shenanigans vs. discombobulate
Our two eminently smileworthy finalists have funny in their very bones. Shenanigans is a funny word about funny business—and fittingly no one knows for sure where it even came from. Discombobulate was quite literally made up for the purpose of sounding funny—apparently originating as a jokey imitation of hifalutin-sounding Latin words. But the question is: Which one puts the biggest smile on your face?
➤ Winner: discombobulate (54% of votes)
Final Four
shenanigans vs. kerplunk
While plucky kerplunk has sunk several heavyweights along the way, plunking cattywampus out of the tourney was its biggest splash yet. But don’t expect its onomatopoetics to faze shenanigans, which will be bringing the ruckus with hijinks, tomfoolery, and monkeyshines in its cheering section. It’s the ’plunker versus the prankster—and only one can move on to the final.
➤ Winner: shenanigans (64% of votes)
whippersnapper vs. discombobulate
In the Round of 8, discombobulate didn’t disappoint, doing what many thought impossible: knocking off dingleberry and ending its furry tail season. But one wonders whether whippersnapper’s win streak can be snapped after it flat-out flabbergasted flibbertigibbet’s Final Four hopes. Grab your snacks, sit back, and watch these two 14-letter leviathans do battle.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (63% of votes)
Round of 16
Round of 32
32 silly words. 1 bracket. Biggest smile wins.
What word puts the biggest smile on your face?
Scouting Reports
Region A
shenanigans vs. squeegee
Top-seeded shenanigans swaggers into the second round after a dominant win over its kindred mischief-maker malarkey. It now faces squeegee, which scored the first round’s largest margin of victory against snorkel, its fellow member of the SEC (Silly Equipment Conference).
➤ Winner: shenanigans (54% of votes)
bumpkin vs. doohickey
Even in a field of phonemic phenoms, bumpkin has got unmatched mouthfeel, with its chonky mpk consonant cluster powering the center and getting solid support from b and n on the bookends. But then there’s doohickey, whose dream team of letter sounds—the initial d, the double o, the ck combo, the -y ending—scored a major upset of dingus in the first round.
➤ Winner: doohickey (70% of votes)
Region B
willy-nilly vs. kerplunk
The fact that willy-nilly comes from a phrase meaning “Will he or will he not?” makes its current incarnation somehow even sillier-willier. At the same time, you have to admit that kerplunk has the perfect spelling, because that’s really what it sounds like, which makes its hilarity almost profound.
➤ Winner: kerplunk (50.3% of votes)
kerfuffle vs. cattywampus
Let’s be honest, there are very few words that are less serious than kerfuffle, which makes it a serious contender to make a run. It now faces cattywampus, which technically can mean the same thing as askew or diagonal, but wow is it way more fun to say. This could be a close one.
➤ Winner: cattywampus (55% of votes)
Region C
flibbertigibbet vs. goober
The word is out about what was perhaps the tourney’s best-kept secret, and the word is flibbertigibbet. And what can be said about goober that’s not already fully communicated by simply saying the word aloud? It’s just a pure and perfectly proportioned peanut of goofball gold.
➤ Winner: flibbertigibbet (58% of votes)
whippersnapper vs. boop
The ironic “get off my lawn” energy of whippersnapper seems to have endeared it to voters in its first round matchup against the clunky clodhopper, but will that momentum continue? Meanwhile: snoots beware. Boop bested snarf in the first round’s single-syllable showdown, and who knows how far it can go now.
➤ Winner: whippersnapper (59% of votes)
Region D
flügelhorn vs. discombobulate
We all forgot about flügelhorn until it broke brass wind in our ears durings its first round trouncing of calliope. But don’t discount discombobulate, which emerged victorious against thingamabob in “The Battle of the Bobs” and now looks poised to befuddle, bewilder, and downright bumfuzzle all comers.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (64% of votes)
sassafras vs. dingleberry
Bracket watchers are hyping this as the premier second round matchup—a throwdown between two potential finalists: the internally alliterative and assonant sassafras against the cheeky powerhouse dingleberry and its snickering legion of fans. Buckle up, folks.
➤ Winner: dingleberry (66% of votes)
Vote Now!
Region A
shenanigans vs. malarkey
A face-off between two puckish pranksters, each tapping the other on the shoulder and then ducking out of sight before they finally face each other—is that a look of begrudging respect?—and then tumble into a cartoon dust cloud with limbs swinging.
➤ Winner: shenanigans (65% of votes)
squeegee vs. snorkel
Never have two such practical objects had more ridiculously fun-to-say names. Literally anything would be funny after snor-, and then the lily gets gilded with -kel! But don’t sleep on those absurd, rhyming double e’s of squeegee.
➤ Winner: squeegee (78% of votes)
bumpkin vs. bupkis
Imagine taking the word pumpkin and making it even funnier-sounding. Imagine, next, a word for “nothing” that’s somehow even sillier than standouts like zilch and diddly-squat (at least according to the selection committee—diddly-squat was on the bubble).
➤ Winner: bumpkin (54% of votes)
dingus vs. doohickey
Dingus. Go ahead and say it out loud—to a lucky passerby or just to yourself for a giggle. Then spend a mirthful moment pondering the nonsense perfection of the word doohickey, and giggle some more.
➤ Winner: doohickey (54% of votes)
Region B
loosey-goosey vs. willy-nilly
Rhyming compounds were born to make you smile, and the best of them meet in this blockbuster first round matchup. With hoity-toity and hurdy-gurdy watching enviously from the sidelines, this is anyone’s game.
➤ Winner: willy-nilly (52% of votes)
kerplunk vs. chortle
We knew onomatopoeia would loom large in this tourney, and this matchup brings the imitative sizzle. Does chortle have the advantage of making you do what it means? Or will kerplunk get a win for the ker- family? (Shout-out to kerflop, kersplat, and kerflooey!)
➤ Winner: kerplunk (69% of votes)
kerfuffle vs. hullabaloo
Kerfuffle, a word that sounds like it got sneezed out, meets hullabaloo, which sounds like the baying of a caricature hound dog. Just try slipping either of these into conversation with a straight face.
➤ Winner: kerfuffle (53% of votes)
boondoggle vs. cattywampus
Both boondoggle and cattywampus seem like they were engineered in a lab for maximum goofiness. Look for boondoggle to try to run out the clock while attempting to duck sideways attacks from cattywampus.
➤ Winner: cattywampus (62% of votes)
Region C
flibbertigibbet vs. fiddlesticks
Flibbertigibbet just looks funny, but it’s even funnier when you realize that it rhymes with liberty ribbit. And then there’s fiddlesticks, the favorite non-cussword of hilarious grandmas everywhere.
➤ Winner: flibbertigibbet (62% of votes)
goofus vs. goober
Just making the tourney was a gallant achievement for goofus, but analysts expect this one to go down to the wire. Because let’s face it: applying either one of these words to a friend who deserves it is always satisfying.
➤ Winner: goober (56% of votes)
whippersnapper vs. clodhopper
It is scientifically impossible to use either of these words seriously, but they’re even more ridiculous when someone tries to. The advantage may go to whippersnapper for voters who have heard someone pronounce the first part with an emphatic hwip.
➤ Winner: whippersnapper (74% of votes)
boop vs. snarf
Judging from this field full of multisyllabic heavyweights, brevity isn’t always the soul of giggles. But boop and snarf are streamlined for smiles. Watch for one of these single-syllable sleepers to make a Cinderella run.
➤ Winner: boop (56% of votes)
Region D
calliope vs. flügelhorn
The word calliope has a sweet, lilting, musical quality to it—in perfect contrast to the honking, umlauted lumbering of flügelhorn. Watch for this one to be divisive among voters.
➤ Winner: flügelhorn (72% of votes)
thingamabob vs. discombobulate
In a match that’s being billed as “The Battle of the Bobs,” catchall favorite thingamabob enters the tourney after a play-in upset of rival thingamajig only to be pitted against discombobulate, whose five silly syllables are the most of any word in the field.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (56% of votes)
sassafras vs. snuggle
Saying sassafras turns your mouth into a party popper 🎉; it’s the verbal equivalent of jazz hands. Snuggle is a warm embrace wrapped in a word that sounds like it was mashed together by the most adorable 3-year-old you know.
➤ Winner: sassafras (73% of votes)
hootenanny vs. dingleberry
That these two words have come to refer to the things that they refer to is a win for us all, but only one can move on. Can the delightful, leg-kicking folksiness of hootenanny match the merry jingle of dingleberry?
➤ Winner: dingleberry (60% of votes)
Round of 32
Region A
shenanigans vs. malarkey
A face-off between two puckish pranksters. We imagine each tapping the other on the shoulder and ducking out of sight before they finally face each other—is that a look of begrudging respect?—and then tumble into a cartoon dust cloud with limbs swinging.
➤ Winner: shenanigans (65% of votes)
squeegee vs. snorkel
Never have two such practical objects had more ridiculously fun-to-say names. Literally anything would be funny after snor-, and then the lily gets gilded with -kel! But don’t sleep on those absurd, rhyming double e’s of squeegee.
➤ Winner: squeegee (78% of votes)
bumpkin vs. bupkis
Imagine taking the word pumpkin and making it even funnier-sounding. Imagine, next, a word for “nothing” that’s somehow even sillier than standouts like zilch and diddly-squat (at least according to the selection committee—diddly-squat was on the bubble).
➤ Winner: bumpkin (54% of votes)
dingus vs. doohickey
Dingus. Go ahead and say it out loud—to a lucky passerby or just to yourself for a giggle. Then spend a mirthful moment pondering the nonsense perfection of the word doohickey, and giggle some more.
➤ Winner: doohickey (54% of votes)
Region B
loosey-goosey vs. willy-nilly
Rhyming compounds were born to make you smile, and the best of them meet in this blockbuster first round matchup. With hoity-toity and hurdy-gurdy watching enviously from the sidelines, this is anyone’s game.
➤ Winner: willy-nilly (52% of votes)
kerplunk vs. chortle
We knew onomatopoeia would loom large in this tourney, and this matchup brings the imitative sizzle. Does chortle have the advantage of making you do what it means? Or will kerplunk get a win for the ker- family? (Shout-out to kerflop, kersplat, and kerflooey!)
➤ Winner: kerplunk (69% of votes)
kerfuffle vs. hullabaloo
Kerfuffle, a word that sounds like it got sneezed out, meets hullabaloo, which sounds like the baying of a caricature hound dog. Just try slipping either of these into conversation with a straight face.
➤ Winner: kerfuffle (53% of votes)
boondoggle vs. cattywampus
Both boondoggle and cattywampus seem like they were engineered in a lab for maximum goofiness. Look for boondoggle to try to run out the clock while attempting to duck sideways attacks from cattywampus.
➤ Winner: cattywampus (62% of votes)
Region C
flibbertigibbet vs. fiddlesticks
Flibbertigibbet just looks funny, but it’s even funnier when you realize that it rhymes with liberty ribbit. And then there’s fiddlesticks, the favorite non-cussword of hilarious grandmas everywhere.
➤ Winner: flibbertigibbet (62% of votes)
goofus vs. goober
Just making the tourney was a gallant achievement for goofus, but analysts expect this one to go down to the wire. Because let’s face it: applying either one of these words to a friend who deserves it is always satisfying.
➤ Winner: goober (56% of votes)
whippersnapper vs. clodhopper
It is scientifically impossible to use either of these words seriously, but they’re even more ridiculous when someone tries to. The advantage may go to whippersnapper for voters who have heard someone pronounce the first part with an emphatic, h-first hwip.
➤ Winner: whippersnapper (74% of votes)
boop vs. snarf
Judging from this field full of multisyllabic heavyweights, brevity isn’t always the soul of giggles. But boop and snarf are streamlined for smiles. Watch for one of these single-syllable sleepers to make a Cinderella run.
➤ Winner: boop (56% of votes)
Region D
calliope vs. flügelhorn
The word calliope has a sweet, lilting, musical quality to it—in perfect contrast to the honking, umlauted lumbering of flügelhorn. Watch for this one to be divisive among voters.
➤ Winner: flügelhorn (72% of votes)
thingamabob vs. discombobulate
In a match that’s being billed as “The Battle of the Bobs,” catchall favorite thingamabob enters the tourney after a play-in upset of rival thingamajig only to be pitted against discombobulate, whose five silly syllables are the most of any word in the field.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (56% of votes)
sassafras vs. snuggle
Saying sassafras turns your mouth into a party popper 🎉; it’s the verbal equivalent of jazz hands. Snuggle is a warm embrace wrapped in a word that sounds like it was mashed together by the most adorable 3-year-old you know.
➤ Winner: sassafras (73% of votes)
hootenanny vs. dingleberry
That these two words have come to refer to the things that they refer to is a win for us all, but only one can move on. Can the delightful, leg-kicking folksiness of hootenanny match the merry jingle of dingleberry?
➤ Winner: dingleberry (60% of votes)
Round of 16
Region A
shenanigans vs. squeegee
Top-seeded shenanigans swaggers into the second round after a dominant win over its kindred mischief-maker malarkey. It now faces squeegee, which scored the first round’s largest margin of victory against snorkel, its fellow member of the SEC (Silly Equipment Conference).
➤ Winner: shenanigans (54% of votes)
bumpkin vs. doohickey
Even in a field of phonemic phenoms, bumpkin has got unmatched mouthfeel, with its chonky mpk consonant cluster powering the center and getting solid support from b and n on the bookends. But then there’s doohickey, whose dream team of letter sounds—the initial d, the double o, the ck combo, the -y ending—scored a major upset of dingus in the first round.
➤ Winner: doohickey (70% of votes)
Region B
willy-nilly vs. kerplunk
The fact that willy-nilly comes from a phrase meaning “Will he or will he not?” makes its current incarnation somehow even sillier-willier. At the same time, you have to admit that kerplunk has the perfect spelling, because that’s really what it sounds like, which makes its hilarity almost profound.
➤ Winner: kerplunk (50.3% of votes)
kerfuffle vs. cattywampus
Let’s be honest, there are very few words that are less serious than kerfuffle, which makes it a serious contender to make a run. It now faces cattywampus, which technically can mean the same thing as askew or diagonal, but wow is it way more fun to say. This could be a close one.
➤ Winner: cattywampus (55% of votes)
Region C
flibbertigibbet vs. goober
The word is out about what was perhaps the tourney’s best-kept secret, and the word is flibbertigibbet. And what can be said about goober that’s not already fully communicated by simply saying the word aloud? It’s just a pure and perfectly proportioned peanut of goofball gold.
➤ Winner: flibbertigibbet (58% of votes)
whippersnapper vs. boop
A faceoff between two puckish pranksters, each tapping the other on the shoulder and then ducking out of sight before they finally face each other—is that a look of begrudging respect?—and then tumble into a cartoon dust cloud with limbs swinging.
➤ Winner: whippersnapper (59% of votes)
Region D
flügelhorn vs. discombobulate
We all forgot about flügelhorn until it broke brass wind in our ears durings its first round trouncing of calliope. But don’t discount discombobulate, which emerged victorious against thingamabob in “The Battle of the Bobs” and now looks poised to befuddle, bewilder, and downright bumfuzzle all comers.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (64% of votes)
sassafras vs. dingleberry
Bracket watchers are hyping this as the premier second round matchup—a throwdown between two potential finalists: the internally alliterative and assonant sassafras against the cheeky powerhouse dingleberry and its snickering legion of fans. Buckle up, folks.
➤ Winner: dingleberry (66% of votes)
Round of 8
Region A
shenanigans vs. doohickey
Shenanigans didn’t even need to resort to any dirty tricks in its win over the squeaky clean squeegee. But watch out for some March Mischief now that it's up against the overachieving doohickey, which upset dingus before easily bumping off bumpkin in the Round of 16.
➤ Winner: shenanigans (80% of votes)
Region B
kerplunk vs. cattywampus
With siblings kerplink and kerplank cheering it on from the stands, kerplunk ended the chaotic tournament run of willy-nilly with a dramatic come-from-behind win—with 50.3% of votes! Kerplunk now faces its toughest test yet against cattywampus, which dashed hopes for a much-rooted-for ker- v. ker- face-off by whomping kerfuffle to secure a spot in this Round of 8 matchup.
➤ Winner: kerplunk (75% of votes)
Region C
flibbertigibbet vs. whippersnapper
Sorry, fans of short words and double o’s, but goober and boop both succumbed to the syllabic superiority of flibbertigibbet and whippersnapper. Now these two absolute units and their 29 combined letters are on an unavoidable collision course. Prepare to get flibberwhipped. (Whippergibbeted? Flibbersnapped?)
➤ Winner: whippersnapper (78% of votes)
Region D
discombobulate vs. dingleberry
One bumfuzzles. The other is dung clung to fuzzy bums. The opponent-perplexing discombobulate meets dingleberry, which has looked unshakeable on its journey from hindquarters to quarterfinals.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (80% of votes)
Final Four
shenanigans vs. kerplunk
While plucky kerplunk has sunk several heavyweights along the way, plunking cattywampus out of the tourney was its biggest splash yet. But don’t expect its onomatopoetics to faze shenanigans, which will be bringing the ruckus with hijinks, tomfoolery, and monkeyshines in its cheering section. It’s the ’plunker versus the prankster—and only one can move on to the final.
➤ Winner: shenanigans (64% of votes)
whippersnapper vs. discombobulate
In the Round of 8, discombobulate didn’t disappoint, doing what many thought impossible: knocking off dingleberry and ending its furry tail season. But one wonders whether whippersnapper’s win streak can be snapped after it flat-out flabbergasted flibbertigibbet’s Final Four hopes. Grab your snacks, sit back, and watch these two 14-letter leviathans do battle.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (63% of votes)
Final
shenanigans vs. discombobulate
Our two eminently smileworthy finalists have funny in their very bones. Shenanigans is a funny word about funny business—and fittingly no one knows for sure where it even came from. Discombobulate was quite literally made up for the purpose of sounding funny—apparently originating as a jokey imitation of hifalutin-sounding Latin words. But the question is: Which one puts the biggest smile on your face?
➤ Winner: discombobulate (54% of votes)
Round of 8
shenanigans vs. doohickey
Shenanigans didn’t even need to resort to any dirty tricks in its win over the squeaky clean squeegee. But watch out for some March Mischief now that it's up against the overachieving doohickey, which upset dingus before easily bumping off bumpkin in the Round of 16.
➤ Winner: shenanigans (80% of votes)
kerplunk vs. cattywampus
With siblings kerplink and kerplank cheering it on from the stands, kerplunk ended the chaotic tournament run of willy-nilly with a dramatic come-from-behind win—with 50.3% of votes! Kerplunk now faces its toughest test yet against cattywampus, which dashed hopes for a much-rooted-for ker- v. ker- face-off by whomping kerfuffle to secure a spot in this Round of 8 matchup.
➤ Winner: kerplunk (75% of votes)
flibbertigibbet vs. whippersnapper
Sorry, fans of short words and double o’s, but goober and boop both succumbed to the syllabic superiority of flibbertigibbet and whippersnapper. Now these two absolute units and their 29 combined letters are on an unavoidable collision course. Prepare to get flibberwhipped. (Whippergibbeted? Flibbersnapped?)
➤ Winner: whippersnapper (78% of votes)
discombobulate vs. dingleberry
One bumfuzzles. The other is dung clung to fuzzy bums. The opponent-perplexing discombobulate meets dingleberry, which has looked unshakeable on its journey from hindquarters to quarterfinals.
➤ Winner: discombobulate (80% of votes)
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In the final match, discombobulate defeated top-seeded shenanigans in a close contest, achieving 54% of votes. The championship capped a wild ride for the polysyllabic powerhouse, which entered the final with a sound victory over whippersnapper in a Final Four that also featured kerplunk. Discombobulate started its run by besting rival thingamabob in the first round’s “Battle of the Bobs” before defeating flügelhorn and then pulling off the shocker of the tournament: a stunning upset of tourney darling dingleberry.
Congratulations to discombobulate and all the smileworthy words—and mad props to you, the voters, who made the madness happen!
