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verb
Fuss  v. i.  (past & past part. fussed; pres. part. fussing)  To be overbusy or unduly anxious about trifles; to make a bustle or ado.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fuss" Quotes from Famous Books



... from the drought, another time; cuddling of 'em like Christians. Ee zee, Miss, Aunt be advanced in years; her family be off her mind, zum married, zum buried; and it zim as if her flowers be like new childern for her, spoilt childern, too, as I zay, and most fuss about they that be least worth it, zickly uns and contrairy uns, as parents will. Many's time I do say to she—'Th' old Zquire's garden, now, 'twould zim strange to thee, sartinly 'twould! How would 'ee feel to ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... like an oddly shaped freight engine running along with a heavy wire cable dangling toward the floor. The big, strong cable was carrying a load of several tons of steel castings as easily as a boy carries in an armful of wood. "And with a whole lot less fuss and bother!" said Betty, with a sly ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... in the house, and we dine eight or ten almost every other day. Military and naval characters are constantly welcome here; women are not, I suppose, because they do not form any part of our society. You may guess, then, what a pretty fuss they make with me. Pitt absolutely goes through the fatigue of a drill sergeant. It is parade after parade at 15 or 20 minutes' distance from each other. I often attend him; and it is quite as much as I am equal to, although I am remarkably ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... uncle), doesn't know that we're quite well now. I'm sure he thinks we're dead. Who does 'your own' mean but Robbie. Oh, how dull you are, Duncan! Can't you see now why she pets that boy so, and makes such a fuss over him? He's her own, and we're not; she loves him and doesn't love us. Did she ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... janitor was actually sitting wide awake. Old Mrs. Vingie, who for years annoyed every Green Valley parson by holding her hand to her right ear and pretending to be deafer than she really was, was sitting bolt upright, both ears and hands forgotten. For once Dolly Beatty forgot to fuss with her hat or admire her hands in the new lavender gloves two sizes too small. The choir even forgot to flirt and yawn and never once looked bored ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... themselves, it is best to leave them alone. In ancient times, although there was no prosy system in Japan, there, were no popular disturbances, and the empire was peacefully ruled. It is because the Japanese were truly moral in their practice that they required no theory of morals, and the fuss made by the Chinese about theoretical morals is owing to their laxity in practice. It is not wonderful that students of Chinese literature should despise their own country for being without a system of morals, but that the Japanese, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... down to do so. "Why, George!" he exclaimed, "it's as easy as possible; what did you make such a fuss about? But—oh—what a beauty! Willie—Willie—look!" and so saying, he drew forth a beautifully made little vessel, about the same size as my "Fair Alice," but even, as I thought, more perfectly ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... of the engine at the gate told her it was stopping. Then the Ralstons had altered their plans, unless—Something suddenly leapt up within her. She was conscious of a curious constriction at the throat, a sense of suffocation. The fuss and worry of the engine died down into silence, and in a moment there came the sound of a man's feet entering the compound. Standing motionless, with hands clenched against her sides, she gazed forth. A tall, straight figure was coming towards her between ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... we've been somewhat to blame in this matter, but, really, I couldn't help the children's making a fuss over the dog. Beth, my youngest child, was grieving herself sick over the death of a favorite dog, and Duke won her heart at once. For her sake, I'd be very glad ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... she pried the child's mouth apart as if he were a pony, to disclose the minute peak of ivory. It was nothing to make such a fuss over, Rudd thought, though he praised it as if it were a ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... fuss and fooling around nobody ever saw. But we're on our way with at least some supplies. Glad we brought a shot-gun and a fishing-rod. Off at 4.15. At 7.30 reached a creek coming into the Husky River from a chain ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... to stop a bit to put up the fences, ma'am," said old John, "or Misther Ball might make a fuss." ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... the farmer, leading the way into the living room, "here's that missing youngster that there's been all the fuss over. He's hungry. You know ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock

... then choked back the tears. He was too much of a sport to make a fuss, especially as the joke was on him. The hollow stem was ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... vegetables that won her step-mother's tolerance of Hale's plan. Through and through June walked, her dark eyes flashing joyously here and there when they were not a little dimmed with tears, with Loretta following her, unsympathetic in appreciation, wondering that June should be making such a fuss about a lot of flowers, but envious withal when she half guessed the reason, and impatient Bub eager to show her other births and changes. And, over and over all the while, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... simply through considering the forms and difficulties that hedge in most places and persons worthy observance, more than equivalent to the gratification to be won from a sight of them. The case is different here: there is no unnecessary fuss or form; the highest public servants are left to protect themselves from impertinent intrusion; and to the stranger, all places that may be considered public property are perfectly accessible, without any tax being levied on his pride, his patience, or his ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... you will get your letters—'Poor boy, poor, dear boy!' In short, notwithstanding all the affectionate interest I take in you, this is sometimes too much for me. In fact, I think I must be very fond of thee not to have grown positively to hate thee for all this fuss. There! In this last sentence, instead of saying you, I have said thee! That ought to gild ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... me I don't know what would become of this fire. I believe the old porter goes to sleep and forgets all about it. Now and again he wakes up and makes a deal of fuss with a shovel ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... put in jail seemed a mere incident in comparison with such bitter and I lifelong suffering; and Samuel was ashamed of having made so much fuss. He had stated, with some trepidation, that he was just out of jail; but Mrs. Stedman had not seemed to mind that. Her husband had been in jail once, during the big glass strike, and for nothing more than begging another man ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... had just had a hodful of bricks fall on his feet)—"Dropt 'em on yer toe! That's nothin'. Why, I seen a bloke get killed stone dead, an' 'e never made such a bloomin' fuss as you're doin'." ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... There was no fuss and no noise. Jack Odin had seen B-47's come in with a great deal more hubbub and dithers than ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam

... Commander-in-Chief's staff, with McClellan himself at their head. Our party managed to establish itself in a position conveniently close to the General, to whom, moreover, we had the honor of an introduction; and he bowed, on his horseback, with a good deal of dignity and martial courtesy, but no airs nor fuss nor pretension beyond what his character ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... she was afraid it would be cheating to make one bottle nicer than what people would get when they ordered a dozen bottles, but Alice said Dora always made a fuss about everything, and really it would ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... meal and a side of bacon are hardly worth making a fuss about," said Bob's father. "I will put a new lock on the smoke-house. But how does it come that you boys did not tell me of ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... one called, as he strode up to the instrument-desk of the chief pilot and tossed his bag carelessly into a corner. "Behold your computer in the flesh! What's all this howl and fuss about ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... about Sir Felix that tempts to garrulity, and I could fill pages here with an account of our preparations for the Regatta; the daily visits he paid me—always in a fuss, and five times out of six over some trivial difficulty that had assailed him in the still watches of the night; the protracted meetings of Committee in the upper chamber of the lifeboat-house at Kirris-vean. But these meetings, and the suggestions ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... such a fuss; said you girls were going to wear your suits. I suppose it is more sensible. Here are your gloves. Lucky they're clean! Got ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... a great fuss about what is no mystery at all,—a schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give up such nonsense and mind my own business.—Hark! What the deuse is that odd noise ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... hero; she didn't say a word or shed a tear. I expected nothing but that she would made a great fuss; but she has all the old spirit that you need to have—and have yet, for anything I ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... where everybody knows your age—or if they make a mistake it is never on the side of youth. But Nancy, who grew accustomed to celebrating my birthdays when I was a little girl, never gets over the habit, and I don't try to cure her, because, after all, it's nice to have some one make a fuss over you. She brought me up my breakfast before I got up out of bed—a concession to my laziness that Nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. She had cooked everything I like best, and had decorated the tray with roses from the garden and ferns from ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... in spite of all his panting, how brave he must have been, what a runner, and how clever, to escape from all those cowardly coast-riders shooting right and left at him! Such a man steal that paltry skirt that her mother made such a fuss about! She was much more likely to find it in her clothes-press filled with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... prudence to defeat Nature's schemes. Let us be sorry for them and not blame them! As for silk dresses, there is no young woman who does not like them. The daughters of Eve adore adornment. You yourself, Therese— who are so serious and sensible—what a fuss you make when you have no white apron to wait at table in! But, tell me, have they got everything ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... surprised at the fuss they were making; then, still tightly holding the ends of his pinafore, he turned and ran out of the room and away as fast as he could go. Away went his father after him, stick in hand, and out of the gate into the thicket of tall wild sunflowers where Martin had vanished ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... it gets known how much there is, you will want a strong convoy to take it across to the railway, and it would not be safe even then. Of course, the bulk is nothing. I should say at any rate you had better get it in here with as little fuss as possible." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... much nowadays, anyhow; and I expect a good many of those are too old to lay. Uncle Jeptha couldn't fuss with chickens, and he didn't raise only a smitch of 'em last year and the year before—just them that the hens hatched themselves in stolen nests, and ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... Not the smallest thing happens here. I do nothing but read my paper, fuss in the garden, which looks very pretty, do up a bundle for my filleul once in a while, write a few letters, and drive about, at sundown, in my perambulator. If that is not an absurd life for a lady in the war zone in these days, I 'd like to ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... But why all this fuss over a wasp's life, and in such circumstances, in a room full of nervous ladies, in a house where I was a guest? It was not that I care more for a wasp than for any other living creature—I don't love ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... to him, sword in hand. "Come, come," said Andrea, "sheathe your sword, my fine fellow; there is no occasion to make such a fuss, since I give myself up;" and he held out his hands to be manacled. The girls looked with horror upon this shameful metamorphosis, the man of the world shaking off his covering and appearing as a galley-slave. Andrea turned towards ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... housekeeper, was indeed glad to have some one to "fuss over," as Tom put it. She prepared a bed for Mr. Baxter, and in this the weary and ill man sank with a sigh ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... Though I do not owe them any grudge; And alas for any who find to their shame That two can play at their little game! For of all hard things to bear and grin, The hardest is knowing you're taken in. Ah, well! as a general thing, we fret About the one we didn't get; But I think we needn't make a fuss, If the one we don't want ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... making quite a fuss over there," he said. "I think a man feels more quiet somehow, when he's out there, teacher. Father says I'm a wild chap and uneasy. I guess that's so. I can take care of them just as well too if I go, and better. Only if I should die—" there was nothing affected ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... no good making a fuss over it,' cried Bell, who overheard his grumbling. 'If Jentham hadn't been shot, we wouldn't be doing so well. For my part, I'm sorry for ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... of Us! In fierce superlatives, and foam and fuss, He deals o'ermuch, but proof lies in his page. He's of the true Parnassian lineage, And should be Laureate—if he care to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... the rifles of the Zulus spoke, and a crackle of shots ran up and down their line. Then there was a flare of light as the bonfire was lit, and they could see the army of baboons in a fuss of panic dashing to and fro. They fired again and again into the tangle of them, and the beasts commenced to scatter and flee, and Shadrach and his men rose to their full height and shot faster, and the hairy army vanished into ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... What's the good of making a fuss over it with me? Should ha' thought you might ha' trusted me ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... watching Elizabeth, and remembered how she had looked at him when he passed her a few minutes before, I knew two specimens of a common variety were before me, and I made up a parable as I watched them watch each other. The two specimens had been in love and been engaged. They had a fuss. The engagement was broken. She was mad, and he was mad, and each thought the other would make the first advance to own up and make up; but before it could be done a young person appeared and distracted ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher

... for my eyes—(will you, my dear friend, make me one or two? Nobody else shall;)—and to bathe them in cold water every hour. I fear, it is the writing has brought on this complaint. My eye is like blood; and the film so extended, that I only see from the corner farthest from my nose. What a fuss about my complaints! But, being so far from my sincere friends, I have leisure to brood ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... tryst with the lasses who lie in the church-yard, he couldn't help being curious and interfering, and then the ghosts would go somewhere where it was quieter. But we just let them come and go and don't make any fuss, and in consequence Fairfield is the ghostiest place in all England. Why, I've seen a headless man sitting on the edge of the well in broad daylight, and the children playing about his feet as if he were their father. ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... more than you do, Ronald, but they must have thought his capture an important one by the fuss they made over his escape. And now, to think that you have slipped out of their hands too!" and Malcolm broke into a loud laugh. "I would give a month's earnings to see the faces of the guard as they make their report that they have arrived empty handed. I was right glad when I saw you. ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... there were two good parts, and Henry, at my request, considered it, although it was always difficult to fit a one-act play into the Lyceum bill. For reasons of his own Henry never produced Mr. Shaw's play and there was a good deal of fuss made about it at the time (1897). But ten years ago Mr. Shaw was not so well known as he is now, and the so-called "rejection" was probably of use to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... and Bob, be you arter the terriers. I'll go get my breakfast, and then we'll rout un out. Come, Bully." But Bully wouldn't, till farmer gave un a kick that set un howling; and then out they all went, and about a minute arter I makes a bolt. Terrible fuss about a turkey; warn't ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... passionate few to make such a fuss about literature? There can be only one reply. They find a keen and lasting pleasure in literature. They enjoy literature as some men enjoy beer. The recurrence of this pleasure naturally keeps their interest in literature very much alive. ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... glanced for a moment into far space, shook her head. And for a few minutes there was utter silence in the plain little bedroom. Then the baby began to fuss and grope, and to make little sneezing faces ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... me. Don't make any fuss, or the crowd will find out that you hired a boy to drug Frank Merriwell. You'll be lynched if ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... just as I said, that because we did not throw away our lives, but were prudent and cautious, we succeeded. People have made a great fuss about it, because it is the only success, however small, that we have gained over the Romans but, as my father says, it has certainly had a good effect. It has excited a feeling of hopefulness and, in the spring, many will take the field ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... interested, and curbing her impatience, she placed the still unopened letter on the table, and, going to her trunk, took from it a thimble and thread. Closing down the lid again, she sat on the trunk and began to sew a rip in her skirt. Annie, meantime, had begun to fuss at ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... go on killing," answered Banneker. "Then, when it's over, there's a big let-down. It doesn't seem as if it were you." He paused and added boyishly: "The evening papers are making an awful fuss over it." ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... about it, nothing striking, nothing to thrill you & make your eye glitter & your tongue cry out, "Oh, it is wonderful, perfectly wonderful!" Yes, it is disappointing. You say, "Is this it?—this? after all this talk and fuss of a thousand generations of travelers who have crossed this frontier & looked about them & told what they saw & felt? Why, it ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... each other. But after this man came among them they began to miss—one a beaver-skin and one a bag of ginseng, and one a belt of wampum, until at last old Pete Hendricks lost his chestnut three-year-old. Then there was a search and a fuss until they found all that had been lost in the stable of the new-comer, so we took him, I and some others, and we hung him up on a tree, without ever thinking what a ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "What a fuss is made about you, my dear little friends!" murmured the Wind, one day, to the flowers in a pretty villa garden. "I am really quite surprised at your submitting so patiently and meekly to all the troublesome ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... to be 'Charity House' now," said Salome Kaye, with that quiet decision of hers which, as Amy described it, "Never makes any fuss, and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... think I do not know as well as you that I behaved like a fool? What I dislike is that you cannot see as plainly that your ward is a troll. Because his womanish face has caught your fancy, you will neither blame him yourself nor allow others to make a fuss—" ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... "This whole fuss makes me sick. Here's them fellers in the crew been goin' out, season after season, takin' folks off wrecks, and the fool papers never say nothin' 'bout it; but they go out this time, and don't save nobody and git drownded themselves, and they're ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... and women need rest very badly a glance at the crowded hotel tables makes plain—so plain, indeed, that the foreigner who has not been taught that fuss and worry are in themselves honourable wishes sometimes he could put the whole unrestful crowd to sleep for seventeen hours a day. I have inquired of not less than five hundred men and women in various parts of the States why they broke down and looked so gash. And the men said: 'If you don't ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... Captain Basil Hall records the following conversation with Scott:-"It occurs to me," I observed, "that people are apt to make too much fuss about the loss of fortune, which is one of the smallest of the great evils of life, and ought to be among the most tolerable."—"Do you call it a small misfortune to be ruined in money-matters?" he asked. "It ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... was a man so mean and cross that he never thought his wife did anything right in the house. So one evening in hay-making time he came home scolding and tearing, and showing his teeth and making a fuss. ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

... said the doctor's wife contentedly. "Billy, now! He won't STAND a locked door. One night—I never shall forget!—the children locked themselves in the nursery, and Will simply burst the door in. Nobody makes a fuss or worries over THAT!" ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... follow Mr. K——. I glanced from the poor wretch to Mr. ——, who was standing, leaning against a table with his arms folded, occasionally uttering a few words of counsel to his slave to be quiet and not fret, and not make a fuss about what there was no help for. I retreated immediately from the horrid scene, breathless with surprise and dismay, and stood for some time in my own room, with my heart and temples throbbing to such a degree that I could hardly support myself. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... none of them found trace or word of her sister. She saw people so stunned that they could hardly remember who Chrystie was, others who treated the catastrophe lightly—not any worse than the quake of '68, nothing to make a fuss about—a good shake-up, that was all. She found families sitting down to cold breakfasts, last night's coffee heated on the flicker of gas left in the pipes; others gathered in pallid groups on the doorsteps, afraid to go into the house, undaunted Chinamen ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... place, on the steamboat 'Black Eagle,' and when we got to Leavenworth, a big crowd of Borderers, seeing us and another lot of free-State men on the boat, refused to let us land. We had to go down the river again. The captain of the boat kicked up a great fuss about it, and wanted to put us ashore on the other side of the river; but the Missouri men wouldn't have it. They put a 'committee,' as they called the two men, on board the steamboat, and they made the skipper ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... business to be fussin' an' causin' yer childern trouble. An' ye ain't goin' to have these pretty jugs to fuss about no more. I'm goin' t' give 'em away; I'm goin' to make a Chris'mas present of 'em to Shaver. They're goin' to be little Shaver's right here, all orderly an' peace'ble, or I'll tromp on 'em! Looky here, Shaver, wot Santy Claus ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson

... truth. There ain't a goin' ter be no lynchin' in Haskell while I'm marshal, unless them rats get me first. But this yere case ain't even that kind. It's a put-up job frum the beginnin' an' Bill Lacy ain't a goin' ter get away with it, as long as I kin either fight er bluff. This yere fuss ain't your fault, an' yer never shot the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... about. Afterwards she said it had made her feel quite creepy. And she'll never be able to eat another egg. At first Father was quite frightened and so was Mother, but then he laughed and said: What a fuss about nothing! She had to go and lie down at once and I stayed downstairs for a long time. When I came up to our room she was reading, that is I saw the light through the crack in the door; but when I opened the door it was all dark and when I asked: ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... the Phi Sigma Tau make it up as a parting gift to Oakdale High School!" asked Nora. "That would be two dollars and a half apiece. I am willing to do with that much less fuss on my graduating gown, if the rest of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... fuss and fury were over, it seemed quite a silly exhibition she had made of herself. She almost wished that she had stayed ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... Thomson was spending a week with her. She had stayed with the Stewarts in the spring, and resolutely keeping a blind eye turned towards whatever she ought to have disapproved in Mildred, had lauded her return to bodily vigor, and also to good sense, in ceasing to fuss about the health of Ian and the baby. Aunt Beatrice would have blushed to own a husband and child whose health required care. This time when she dined with the Stewarts she had found Milly reprehensibly pale and dispirited. One day shortly ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... first week she gave way. "I won't get up, Bell," she said one morning, almost petulantly. "I am ill;—I had better lie here out of the way. Don't make a fuss about it. I'm stupid and foolish, and that makes ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... time—low fellows, but masters of driving— were made so much fuss of by sprigs of nobility and others that their brutality and rapacious insolence had reached a climax. One, who frequented our inn, and who was called the "bang-up coachman," was a swaggering bully, who not only lashed his horses unmercifully, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... help me bind the Dragon?" says the Briton to the Russ. Oho! ingenuous JOHNNY! I'm opposed to needless fuss, And have other fish to fry—say near the Oxus! Not a hang Do I care for what may happen on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various

... before. Gammon! We know we're a tremendous bore. We're a plain man, and don't like all this fuss; Accept our game, but don't make game ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... and soften Benjy down a bit. He is an awful boy, and I think I can make him less repulsive. The fact is the story was written in fragments, and I was anxious to show that it was not a little boyish roughness that I meant to make a fuss and "point a moral" about—nor did I want to go into fine-drawn questions about the cruelties of sport, and when I came to join the bits into a whole and copy out, I found I had overproved my point and made Benjy a ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... nothing more," explained Joan. "So long as my friendship is of any assistance to Robert Phillips in his work, he's going to have it. What use are we going to be in politics—what's all the fuss about, if men and women mustn't work together for their common ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... he will. He's the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a fuss about it, or it'll be the worse ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner

... youngest, and the other two were older than her by ten years or more. Consequently, they thought her a bit flighty, an' needin' o' some restriction. They did not let her associate with any o' the neighbors, an' a great fuss they raised when she made friends with me while her horse took a drink at the trough when she was passing. I pitied the child, fer she had a pretty face, an' big, sad eyes that seemed to yearn fer companions. ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... enough the house was burned down, all fallen into the cellar. And Old Bender was pokin' around, and his wife and the boy with the big mouth. Nigger Dick was there cleanin' things away. My pa had sent him out to do it. We began to fuss around too and pa was askin' Old Bender how the ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... matter secret, not telling even Mr. Damon, for they feared the eccentric man would make a fuss and alarm the whole vessel. So Mr. Damon, occasionally blessing his necktie or his shoe laces, played chess with his elderly gentleman friend and was ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

... Since any additional fuss the clak-claks might make on sighting him would be undistinguished in their now general clamor, the Terran crawled on to where tall grass provided a screen at the top of the slope. There he stopped short, his hands digging into the earth ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... what you have been doing in the cold so long," her mother answered, without pausing in her work. "Miss Holmes was a beautiful hand with her needle, and how she did fuss over that! But you might just as well have made it some other day; I was in no hurry for it. Put it in my bureau-drawer, and come and mend these blankets your father has just brought in. He thinks that we have so little to do that we can sew for the horses ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... turned to Lafayette, and said, 'Lafayette, you intend to kill,' and discharged his pistol at him. The ball struck the pistol of Lafayette, and glanced into his arm. By this time Albert Ward, being close by, and hearing the fuss, came up to the assistance of the Colonel, when a scuffle amongst all hands ensued. The Colonel stumbled and fell down—he received several wounds from a large bowie knife; and, after being stabbed, Chamberlayne jumped upon him, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... your good, miss. So you'd better not make a fuss;" and the landlady left the room, not failing to lock the door securely ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... the nose, it is said, Till a wictim's gore ran over the floor And he rolled in the scuppers dead. But, Patch, there 's a few, I 'm tellin' ter you, Who 's nice and they hates a muss, And a plank, I contend, is a tidier end. No sweepin', nor scrapin', nor fuss. ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... deprived of our passports, while two of our number, found to be without such documents, are led away to a night's lodging in a dark storehouse in a corner of the premises. Everything is executed quietly enough, and without the least fuss, purely as a matter of routine; yet Konev mutters, as dejectedly he contemplates the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... not relieved even when Kennedy stopped speaking and began to fuss with a little upright target which he set up at one end of his table. We seemed to be seated over a powder-magazine which threatened to explode at any moment. I, at least, felt the tension so greatly that it was only after he had started speaking again that ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... save the situation by saying gently: "Well, I don't know. It is the commonest of all situations in a melodrama. So why fuss?" ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... that it was now too late; that the thieves, whoever they were, had had time to make away with their plunder, and there would merely be a fuss and worry for nothing." ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... You see the Deacon he wuz mighty fond of goin' a-huntin', and as he had rheumatiz purty bad it wuz sort of hard fer him to git 'round, so he had to do his huntin' on hoss back. Wall, Jim didn't say much to fuss, just kinder hinted around that huntin' was a-goin' to be mighty good this fall, cos he'd seen one or two flocks of partridges over back of Sprosby's medder, and some right smart of quail over by Buttermilk ford, ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart

... going to ask what you two are doing here," he said sternly, "because I know already. If I called the police I could send you both to prison for house-breaking and attempted robbery; but I don't want any fuss, and perhaps you have been punished enough for the present. Ah, I see your accomplice is coming round. You came in by the window, I suppose. Now get out by it as quick as you can, and mind you keep your mouths shut ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... fuss he wants, suh, an' nothing else," declared Mrs. Spade, smoothing down the starched fold of her gingham apron; "an' if he doesn't git it, po' creetur, he's goin' to be laid up in bed befo' the week is out. He's bilin' hot inside, I can see that in his face, an' if the steam don't work out ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... like Tom Kane thataway—always wantin' in where it's warm. Aw right, that's settled. Lookit, we know there's some crooked work on the towpath going on, and that Lanpher and Harpe are in it up to their hocks. We know that Nebraska is one of Harpe's friends, and we know that after my fuss with Nebraska, Harpe comes to you and me and offers us jobs—jobs at fifty per, wages to start when we say when, and no work for a while, yet we're to stay round town till he wants us to start in. And he talks of maybe a li'l trouble in the future with Baldy Barbee and the Anvil boys, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... considerable time. Then, becoming conscious of the flatness, staleness and unprofitableness of it all, as far as my elderly selfishness was concerned, I threw my extinct cigar end into the fire, and thanking God that I had come to an age when all this storm and fuss over a creature of the opposite sex was a thing of the past, and yet with an unregenerate pang of regret for manifold what-might-have-beens, I put out the lights and ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... upon the corn that surrounded us, and then fell into a charming sleep, from which we were awakened the next morning by the sound of human voices. We very distinctly heard that of a boy, saying, 'Let us mix all the threshed corn with the rest that is not threshed, and that will make a fine fuss, and set John and Simon a swearing like troopers when they come and find all their labour lost, and that they must do all their work over again.' 'And do you think there is anything so agreeable in giving people trouble, ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... slipped outside the door, and looked wistfully and anxiously across the plain, at the cattle now peacefully grazing on the salt-bush, and at the mocking mirage in the far distance. Never before, it seemed to her, had so much fuss been made about the cattle. The ghost trick had stood them in good stead for some time, and now apparently ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... directions. Then morning and evening flocks of little budgerigars, or lovebirds, fly round and round, and at last take a dive through the air and hang in a cloud close over the water; then, spreading out their wings, they drink, floating on the surface. The galahs make the most fuss of any, chattering away on the trees, and sneaking down one by one, as if they hoped by their noise to cover the advance of their mate. The prettiest of all the birds is a little plump, quail-like rock-pigeon or spinifex-pigeon, a dear little shiny, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... would be in those clothes. And as to her motive, why, papa, I heard you say in this very room, and afterwards to Mr. Calvert, when you gave him instructions, that you believed those Culpeppers were capable of enticing away deserters; and you forget the fuss you had with her savage brother's lawyer about that water front, and how you said it was such people who kept up the irritation between the Civil and ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... disappointed place-seeker to jibe and rail against the powers that be, especially when he is not in full possession of the data! For all I know, they may have discovered my friend M—— to be a dangerous character, and have been only too glad to remove him out of society without unnecessary fuss, in an outwardly honourable fashion, with a view to saving his poor but respectable parents the humiliating experience of a criminal trial and possible execution ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... a chair with no fuss of words, and knelt beside her, stroking her hair, comforting her, with ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... 'em. Whenever I let her she's fussin' with my hands with little sticks and knives, until sometimes I'd like to box her ears. How any one can spend so much time just settin' still and lettin' some one fuss with their hands, I don't see. But I let her do it, as I don't have much else to do here but just set still, and she'd better fool with my hands than spend her time talkin' with William, which she ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper

... such a fuss," I said, "I'll give you an ostrich in place of your goose!" While she sat upon the cot and, to my stupefaction, bewailed the death of the goose, Proselenos came in with the materials for the sacrifice. Seeing the dead goose and inquiring the cause ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... medical evidence to show that he had suffered for years from heart disease, and would have died in any case, wherever he had been; but the editor fellow wanted to make political capital out of it, and kicked up quite a fuss about my agent's shocking inhumanity. As if we could possibly help ourselves in the matter! People must get their rents in ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... have thought her in truth mourning an absent lover, and familiar with every pang of heart-privation. Her cleanliness, clean even of its own show, was a heavenly purity; while so gently was all her spiriting done, that the very idea of fuss died in the presence of her labor. To the self-centered such a person soon becomes a nobody; the more dependent they are upon her unfailing ministration, the less they think of her; but they have another way of regarding such in "the high countries." ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... were human remains had judiciously taken them away to destroy or stow them away in some safe place. For if the village constable had discovered them, or heard of their presence, he would perhaps have made a fuss and even thought it necessary to communicate with the coroner of the district. Such things occasionally happen, even in Wiltshire where the chalk hills are full of the bones of dead men, and a solemn Crowner's quest is held on the remains of a Saxon or ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... a little confused as she struggled vainly with her hair. "Oh, I'm not going to fuss with it any more!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Yes, I'll go with you, and let the maid do ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... After all the fuss that had been made, she was not surprised next day when the Commissioner of Police asked her, very politely, while closely inspecting the "note of recommendation," to call for her permits on Monday (this was ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... in the stirrup leathers eleven inches higher than the top one of all before she could touch the irons; but she settled into the saddle with great firmness and we were off without any fuss. Once on a horse, she had no difficulty in maintaining a perfect continuity of speech, and I soon felt relieved of all anxiety about her safety. If she was not an old and practised hand, she had nerve and balance, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various

... existing Judicial Courts. The one would be for a special emergency, and temporary; and Government would not be very averse to it; but the other they certainly would not venture upon, particularly at this time. A great fuss would be made about it here and at home; and lawyers are too influential ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... was run over by a cab in New York. He was taken to a hospital, but made such a fuss about staying there that he was finally removed to his garret home. He died there in a few days. Then a man came forward with a power of attorney which he said Paine gave him in 1885 and which authorized him to take charge of Paine's interest in the estate of his brother, Robert Treat Paine. The ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... to be explained; his self-humiliation to the very bass-string was deliberate; and as soon as a call reached him from the bedside of a dying man his desire was to set to work and do as much good as he could with the least possible fuss or show. He therefore refrained from calling up a stableman to get ready any horse or gig, and set out for One-chimney Hut on foot, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... greatly to the cheerfulness of one about to leave this "mortial wale," to feel morally certain that nobody cared a rap about him, or was going to make any fuss just ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various

... mourning, costumes, skirts, etcetera; foreign and British silks, guaranteed makes." After that the written entry seemed mere bathos: "Material and trimming one bonnet, 11 shillings and 9 pence; one hat, 13 shillings 6 pence. Total, 1 pound 5 shillings 3 pence." It really was not worth while making a fuss about, and the bunch of cherries and bit of spangled net were well worth the 1 shilling 9 pence, that Anastasia's ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... the Echo there, And cultured ev'ning papers fair, With din and fuss and shout and blare Through all the eager land they bare, The ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang

... it plaintee fuss about hees daughter Emmeline, Dat's mebbe nice girl, too, but den, Mon Dieu, she's not de queen! An' w'en de young man's come aroun' for spark it on de door, An' hear de ole man swear "Bapteme!" ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond

... what to answer and we walked on a little way in silence; then she said: "If you'd carried him off this morning he would have escaped all this fuss." After a pause she added slowly: "On the whole, it might have been ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... whether people knew it or did not know it. Our younger Briton had at the first glance taken him for the ordinary English father of a family, travelling with his womankind. But he had not seen him for two minutes at the breakfast table before he observed that the supposed heavy father was never in a fuss, had a way of having all his orders obeyed without trouble or misunderstanding, and for all his strong British accent talked French with entire ease and a sort ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... a singular life that was led for six months. The most loyal fraternity was practiced without any fuss in this circle, in which everything was for all, and good or ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... me melodramatic and absurd. I am melodramatic and absurd, with my running feet, and my small figure and earnest, upturned face, standing under a Convent wall at midnight, and talking about la vie et la mort. It is too improbable. I am too improbable. I feel that I am making a fuss out of all proportion to the occasion. And I am sorry for frightening the poor lay ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... have a force sent up against us, and be obliged to move away, for a time. But as it is, they are so pleased with getting the greater part of their goods safe to market that they do not care to make a fuss about it; for they might have to pay the court officials, and others, more than the value of ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... Blood-money wouldn't circulate worth a whoop in my system. But I think I could land Cayuse." He held no grudge against Culver now. Perhaps he regretted the fuss he had made on the day of Culver's death. "I'll take ten dollars a day," he added, "and see what I can do about ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... ago Mrs. Pea-Hen made a great fuss over wanting to bring up a family, and began to set on anything and everything she could find that looked like an egg. Well, Mr. Man made a nice nest for her, and put in it thirteen white eggs. No hen could have asked for a better place in which to show what she was able to ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice

... were engaged in getting up luggage from the lower hold by the aid of a donkey engine, which made a great deal of clattering fuss over doing a minimum amount of work—in which respect it resembled a good many people of my acquaintance, by the way. It was not pleasant to have the iron-bound cover of a heavy chest poked into the small of one's back without leave or licence, and the entire article being subsequently ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... the flood had doubtless destroyed great numbers within their holes, but these, having been disturbed by the deluge, had found an asylum by crawling up the tent walls: with great difficulty we lighted a fire, and committed them all to the flames. Mahomet made a great fuss about his hand, which was certainly much swollen, but not worse than that of Achmet, who did not complain, although during the night he had been again bitten on the leg by one of these venomous insects, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... government! Do ye see who's listening?" He grabbed his prisoner again and shook him. "Be careful of what you say as an American citizen in the hearing of rats like this, Tolson! It encourages 'em. They think we mean it. Get the bile out of your system in a strictly family fuss! Spit out a lot you don't mean, if it's going to make you feel better! But first slam down the windows so that the outsiders can't overhear. I'll see ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... BROWN: We've finally got things going. Had to stir them up a little at Ledyard. Can you tell me who it is that's got hold of our coat tails on this job? There's somebody trying to hold us back, all right. Had a little fuss with a red-headed walking delegate last night, but fixed him. That hat hasn't come yet. Shall I call up the express company and see what's the matter? ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin



Words linked to "Fuss" :   ado, dither, perturbation, flurry, agitation, mother, fussy, ruckus, pettifoggery, din, trouble, squabble, rumpus, tizzy, fret, quarrel, spat, pother, niggle, row, commotion, disturbance, overprotect, flap, care, fuss-budget, scruple, hustle



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