Are you a ‘Muffel’?

Do you know what a Muffel is? Apart from being such a great word what is it?

It’s a grouch, a grumpy or sullen person. You can also use ‘Muffel’ to describe people who are indifferent or disinterested in a certain matter.

A little bit of grammar: Muffel is masculine, no matter whether the grouchy person is a man or woman and it doesn’t change in the plural. So der Muffel if it’s one, and die Muffel if it’s more than one.

But what makes the word Muffel really interesting is that you rarely hear it used on its own. It is mainly used together with another noun to say what type of grouch that person is.

Here are some examples:

• der Morgenmuffel – somebody, who is grumpy in the morning
• der Sportmuffel – a person who avoids to exercise
• der Tanzmuffel – a person who doesn’t like to dance

But the best thing of the noun Muffel is that you can make up words. Use a noun of anything somebody might not like and add ‘-muffel’. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the dictionary or not, just do it.

So, here are a few more examples:

• der Modemuffel – somebody, who doesn’t like fashion
• der Sexmuffel  –  somebody British? ☺☺ ☺
• der Einkaufsmuffel – somebody who doesn’t like shopping

You can also make up compound nouns with verbs, but then you need to delete the infinitive ‘en’ ending, like

• der Lernmuffel – a person who avoids to learn (lernen)
• der Kochmuffel – a person who doesn’t like to cook (kochen)

So, my question to you is:

Are you a ‘Muffel’ and, if yes,  what type of ‘Muffel’ are you?

I look forward to see your answers ☺

EDIT August 2020. I have to add another – appropriate for our time – Muffel:
der Maskenmuffel – somebody who doesn’t want to wear a face mask