McGuffin
/məˈɡʌfɪn
/(also MacGuffin)
noun
An object or device in a film or a book which serves merely as a trigger for the plot: the McGuffin in this intriguing comedy is an unpublished novel by a young writer killed in the war...
- I named it after Alfred Hitchock's description of his plot device, a McGuffin, that every character in the story searches for believing it will solve their problem.
- Although this plot motivation is not much more than one of Hitchcock's famous McGuffins, it is a McGuffin that strongly hints at the U.S. government's illegal incursions into foreign parts of the globe.
- So if the mystery plot is really just a McGuffin, what is Fuller really trying to accomplish by setting the story in this mental asylum?
Origin
1930s: a Scottish surname, coined in this sense by the English film director Alfred Hitchcock, allegedly from a humorous story involving such a pivotal factor.