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Fuss   Listen
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



... her estate. Johnny found it in an envelope when he returned to the back bedroom, and with it a note to say that it was in part payment of Captain Polkington's debts, for which, of course, his family were responsible; "and if you make a fuss about it," the letter concluded, dropping the business-like style, "I shall trim 'Bouquet' to stink next time you come to Marbridge, and not come ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... was done a great deal better than it is now," said the archdeacon. "There wasn't so much fuss, but there was more reality. And men were ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... answered, "supposing anything were found out, or even suspected, what am I to say? Old Congleton knows me well, and for his own sake doesn't want to make a fuss; but if he really spots that something is wrong, he will be so afraid of his reputation that he'd give me away like ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... reply to this malicious observation. They had reached the counter where reigned the dame who had permitted the improper payment, and, for the sake of his dignity, the usurer thought it proper to make a fuss. After which the two men departed, and the copying-clerk took his employer to a low coffee-house in the Passage du Saumon. There Cerizet recovered his good-humor; he was like a fish out of water suddenly returned to his ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... was danger near. I, on the contrary, made the trial the business of my life, and I have become a cripple in consequence of my exertions. If any one had a right to the first prize it was I; but I make no fuss; I scorn ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... Well, Quade was a gent that lived out the norm trail, and he had a fuss with the schoolteacher over Sally Bent, and the schoolteacher up and murders Quade, and they raise a posse and go out to hang Gaspar, the teacher, and they're kept from it by a stranger called Sinclair; when the sheriff ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... buy from Mott. Used to summer it at Magnolia. Row from Bull Creek once a month to Chapel. (10 miles or more) Put them All Saints eleven o'clock service. Four best men his rowsmen. Fuss (first) year war we tuh Bull Creek. Nobody go (to All Saints) but Missus and Massa ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... myself with Elsa, alone for a little while with Elsa exultant in her pomp, observed of all, the envy of all, the centre of the spectacle, frocked and jewelled beyond heart's desire, narcotized by fuss and finery, laughing and trembling. I had found her alone with difficulty, for she kept some woman by her almost all the day. She did not desire to be alone with me. That was to come to-morrow at Artenberg. Now was her moment, and she strove to think it eternal. It was not in her to face ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... 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, June was ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... of that party. I never saw a party break up so quietly, and with so little fuss. We never said good-night even to one another. We came downstairs one at a time, walking softly, and keeping the shady side. We asked the servant for our hats and coats in whispers, and opened the door, and slipped out, and got round ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... we live in a crowd? Why must we be pressed upon with all this fuss and doing? Doing, doing! We are not ready to do anything yet. Every day must have its dawn;—and I don't see my ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... eight o'clock returning boat and sat, filled with pleasant fatigue, against the rail in the bow, listening to the Italians' fiddle and harp. Blinker had thrown off all care. The North Woods seemed to him an uninhabitable wilderness. What a fuss he had made over signing his name—pooh! he could sign it a hundred times. And her name was as pretty as she was—"Florence," he said it to himself a great ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... the meeting's organized, with as much formality, fuss and fungus as the opening of the House of Parliament; soon is heard the work of balloting for nominations, and soon it is known that Twist is the man for the Senate—this calls Twist out; he spreads—feels overpowered—this unexpected (!) event—attending as a spectator, not anticipating ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... upwards, her elbow pressed against her waist, her head bent a little to the right, in the attitude of a suppliant. Solomin let the husband and wife go through their little comedy, shook hands with them both, and sat down at the first invitation to do so. Sipiagin began to fuss about him, asking if he would like anything, but Solomin assured him that he wanted nothing and was not in the least bit tired ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... fate! Nobody saw you come into this house to-night. Nobody shall see you leave. Look here, sir, at this bottle. It's chloroform: do you understand? Chloroform—chloroform—chloroform! I shall hold it to your nose—so. I shall stifle you quietly—no blood, no fuss, no nasty mess of any sort. And when I'm done,—do you see these flasks?—I can reduce your damned carcase to a pound of ashes with chemicals in half-an-hour! You've found out too much. But you've mistaken your man! Courtenay Ivor, say your ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... anything early. But I don't like a fuss just as I am going. I'll get down and drive away to catch some train. My ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... Holt's lantern, I do believe," he declared. "The one Winnie S. was makin' such a fuss about last night. How in the nation did it get ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... It's very nice, but I 'm tired of it. Years ago, I sent some of it home to the folks in England. They thought everything of it; and it was not very nice, either,—a cheap sort. Moral ideas? I don't care for moral ideas: people make such a fuss about them lately (this in reply to her next neighbor, an eccentric, thin man, with bushy hair, shaggy eyebrows, and a high, falsetto voice, who rallied the witty old lady all dinner-time about her lack of moral ideas, and accurately described the thin wine on the table ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... may look in vain. It depends on what she is—I'm not sacrificing myself on the altar of general unattractiveness." Then he laughed. "Rest easy, I'll fuss her to the limit. You shan't have her ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... of express company checks worth six hundred dollars. You signed all of 'em and turned 'em over to Sneyd with three one-hundred-lire bills, which was all the cash you had with you. Then you gave him your note for twelve thousand francs to be paid within three days. You made a great deal of fuss about its being a 'debt of honor.'" He paused. "You hadn't remembered that, ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington

... arranged beforehand by Dicky Snookes and my other messmates with the captain of the top, just to see what I was made of, and what I would do, it being understood that he was to keep whatever he could get out of me. Had I cried or made a fuss about the matter, or said that I would complain to my uncle, I should have been looked upon as a regular sneak. The fellows hate telling of one another here just as much as we did at school. From the way I took ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best friend" by saying honestly, "she's never 'grand' about herself the least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn't help being—just a little—if I had so many fine things and was made such a fuss over. It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of Divinity. 'Blow me,' says I to Old Bags, 'but I 'll do his reverence!' 'Blow me,' says Old Bags, 'but you sha' n't,—you'll have us scragged if you touches the Church.' 'My grandmother!' says I. Bags tells the pals,—all in a fuss about it,—what care I? I puts on a decent dress, and goes to the doctor as a decayed soldier wot supplies the shops in the turning line. His reverence—a fat jolly dog as ever you see—was at dinner over a fine roast pig; so I tells him I have some bargains at home for him. Splice me, if the doctor ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... For example, why should Alberta still permit the hunting and killing of prong-horned antelope, when it is so well known that that species is vanishing like a mist before the morning sun? I think it is because no one seems to have risen up as G.O. Shields did in the United States, to make a big fuss about it, and demand a reform. At any rate, all the provinces of Canada that still possess antelope should immediately pass laws giving that species absolute close seasons for ten years. Why neglect it longer, when such neglect is now ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... sent to the Conciergerie. It was conjectured he was concerned with a Banker who went off—but instead of that being true, the Banker absconded with all his money! Sir C. Stuart means to make a fuss about it, for no one is safe if taken up ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... be helped, child; I shall have to do it, so it's no use talking about it; I may as well do it without making a fuss about it; your father is put out to-night, darling, and it would never do to annoy ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... God-bless-you-my-children registered letter, with check enclosed, agreeing to my stipulation that it should be a six-per-cent business affair. Suppose we could not have raised that money—suppose our lives had been minus that German experience! Bless fathers! They may scold and fuss at romance, and have "good sensible ideas of their own" on such ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... suspect her of giving them away to the Upper School. Rona's had a hard enough struggle to get any footing at all at The Woodlands, and I don't want to make it any harder for her. If she once gets the reputation of 'tell-tale' she's done for. Since Stephanie made that fuss about juniors coming into senior rooms I mayn't ask her into V B; so if she's ostracized by her own form too she'll be neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. No; however I find out it mustn't be ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... Thoburn came in, and as he opened the door, in leaped Arabella. The women made a fuss over the creature and cuddled her, and when I tried to put her out everybody objected. So she stayed, and Miss Summers put her through a lot of tricks, while the men crowded around. As I said before, Miss Summers was a first ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... 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

... flogged. One of the boys inquired, "What am I to be punished for, sir?" "I don't know, but your name is down on the list, and I shall have to go through with it," and the flogging was administered. The boy made such a fuss that the master looked over the list on his return to his rooms, to see whether he had made a mistake, and found that he had whipped the confirmation ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... never tell Ma any of your troubles; she never slept a wink the night your last letter came, and she looks distressed yet. Write only cheerful news to her. You know that she will not be satisfied so long as she thinks anything is going on that she is ignorant of—and she makes a little fuss about it when her suspicions are awakened; but that makes no difference—. I know that it is better that she be kept in the dark concerning all things of an unpleasant nature. She upbraids me occasionally for giving her only the bright side of my affairs (but unfortunately for her she has to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... gave a howl, 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 ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... went fer 'bout a year, Tel John, at last, found pluck to go And pour his tale in the old man's ear— And ef it had been HOT LEAD, I know It couldn't 'a' raised a louder fuss, Ner 'a' riled the old man's temper wuss! He jest LIT in, and cussed and swore, And lunged and rared, and ripped and tore, And told John jest to leave his door, And not to darken it no more! But Patience cried, with eyes all wet, "Remember, John, and don't ferget, ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... chap; I'll give you a lift;" and Nat walked away with him leaving the others to talk over the feat together, to wonder when Dan would "come round," and to wish one and all that Tommy's "confounded money had been in Jericho before it made such a fuss." ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... was another witness before the Court of Inquiry. A mighty official of the White Star Line. The impression of his testimony which the Report gave is of an almost scornful impatience with all this fuss and pother. Boats! Of course we have crowded our decks with them in answer to this ignorant clamour. Mere lumber! How can we handle so many boats with our davits? Your people don't know the conditions of the problem. We have given these matters our ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... indeed, would play with his child in the mornings when he was brought to Lucy's room; but the burden of his remarks was to point out to her how much better the little beggar got on when there was less fuss made about him. And Lucy's one grievance against her visitor, the only one which she permitted herself to perceive, was that she never took any notice of little Tom. She never asked for him, a thing which was unexampled in Lucy's experience. When he was produced ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... his face only. He made no fuss, but kissed the hand of his faithful friend the lieutenant and went about ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce

... main question is not how happy men and women have been in this world, but what they have made of themselves."* The loftier a man's own view of mental conceptions and sublunary things, the more will he admire Carlyle as described by Froude. The same Carlyle who made a ridiculous fuss about trifles confronted the real evils and trials of life with a dignity, courage, and composure which inspire humble reverence rather than vulgar admiration. Froude rightly felt that Carlyle's petty grumbles, often most amusing, throw into bright and strong relief ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... be tambourine; his expression indicating that this is the proudest day of his life. Every time the drum begins to rattle he flourishes his tail, and when each little ceremony is over he moves on to a fresh place with a jaunty air, as if he were aware that all this drumming and fuss were especially intended for his entertainment. No condemned wretch ever made his last appearance in public with ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... the church out in that vestibule. The chief sent me to you to tell you to go on preaching and hold the grown folks down stairs for ten minutes. The firemen will get the little ones out without noise or fuss, if you can keep the attention of the people. I'll whisper 'all right' to you when they are gone. Then you tell the rest to file out quietly. It is the only chance you have to save those children in this ramshackle old building, so you preach ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley

... "Don't fuss yourself," retorted Barry grimly. "I don't blame you. Just don't fancy sailing under sealed orders, that's all. I've got my own instructions, and I'll carry 'em out, never fear. But I hate to feel that just when things get tight, somebody ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... great deal of territory of the Louisiana Purchase waiting to be carved into states. Now said Douglas, "why make all this fuss about slavery or no slavery every time a new state wants to be admitted? Do away with this Missouri Compromise, and when there are enough people in a territory to allow of its being admitted as a state, let these people themselves decide whether they wish it ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... thing you know those northern Yankees will take our forts," she heard Philip say, and heard Ralph laugh scornfully as he responed: "They can't do it, or free our slaves, either. Say, did you know Father was going to sell Dinkie; she's making such a fuss that I reckon she'll get a lashing; says she don't want to leave ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... of temper, was legging it to the best of his ability, his tormentor, still clinging to the tail, asked, 'Darn you, who commenced this fuss?' ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... a peculiarity among these people, that, when engaged in an employment, they always make a prodigious fuss about it. So seldom do they ever exert themselves, that when they do work they seem determined that so meritorious an action shall not escape the observation of those around if, for example, they have occasion to remove a stone to a little distance, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... is that the English spirit is distrustful of emotion and display. It is ashamed of making "a fuss" and hates heroics. The typical Englishman hides his feelings even from his family, clothes his affections under a mask of indifference, and cracks a joke to avoid "making a fool of himself." It is not that he is without great passions, but that he does not like ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... understand this book; and it was not strange that he could not, for the author did not intend that he should. The philosopher drops a hint in passing, however, that all which is essential in this method, might perhaps be retained without quite so much formality and fuss in the use of it, and that the proposed result might be arrived at by means of these same tables, without any use of technical language at ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... "The feller that burned down your marm's house? Don't blame ye for bein' mad. But ye don't wanter stir up a fuss here. Our game is ter lay low and let the Tories start the row if they're minded to. You'll see. Mr. Lewis an' some others is goin' to see the judges to-morrow an' try to keep the court from sittin'. They'll sure be trouble if the ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... well ordered when the wife does not make a fuss over the undeclared plans of her husband nor without his counsel undertakes to do any thing. Both he shows in the person of Hera; the former he attributes to Zeus as speaker (I. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... want the Messengers'? We'll teach the Public sense, Which consists in looking pleasant while we pocket all their pence. Though the papers rave, we care not for their chatter and their fuss. They must keep at home their messages, or send them all through Us. And we'll crush these boy-intruders as a mongoose crushes snakes. They have sown, but we shall reap it—'tis ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various

... enough to strict and stern justice in their dealings with the savages: but they could not help looking slyly at each other, and hinting, when out of sight, that the captain seemed in a mighty fuss about his new acquaintance. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... is an important step towards the huge and swarming popularisation of flying which is now certainly imminent. We ancient survivors of those who believed in and wrote about flying before there was any flying used to make a great fuss about the dangers and difficulties of landing and getting up. We wrote with vast gravity about "starting rails" and "landing stages," and it is still true that landing an aeroplane, except upon a well-known and quite level expanse, is a risky ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... 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 went ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... 'Princess,'" I admitted. "It was some one from Austria anyway—come to fuss about the old Dun Vorlees place! You said it was! You said that's who it was!—It's the only Strange ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... is!" exclaimed Elsie, nervously, putting the bracelet in his hand. "What is the matter with you, Grant? I am sure there is nothing to make a fuss about. I found the bracelet among a lot of rubbish in one of Bessie's drawers—I suppose she ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... laughingly rubbed his head where one of their shots had struck home. With careful aim he showered the trees, and gradually the monkeys began to disperse. He had won; the fun was over. He watched them scold and fuss as they retreated into the jungle, regretting that he had not kept them with him a ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... cigar. "There's going to be an awful lot of fuss in the papers, but the President is going to announce that he accepts the Soviet story. I convinced him that it is best to let the Soviets think they're a long way ahead of us in the space race now. There's nothing like a little ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett

... been weak herself at the time that the baby fell ill, and unusually ill-fitted to bear a heavy blow. Then her watchful eyes had seen symptoms of ailing in the child long before the windmiller's good sense would allow a fuss to be made, and expense to be incurred about a little peevishness up or down. And it was some words muttered by the doctor when he did come, about not having been sent for soon enough, which were now doing as much as any thing to drive the poor woman frantic. They struck a blow, too, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... wouldn't, and when my brother hears of this outrage he'll raise a big fuss over it. He's a lawyer and knows how ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... employing all efforts to clear out abuses; Jupiter, Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets, Scholars, and Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the Martyrs, and Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas: He must forsooth make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and Bring back Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe: Lo you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty; Are they abating at last? the doves that are sent to explore ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough

... name wasn't Miss Molly Coddle, just for a joke, you see; and we all laughed: but she ran away; and, when I went to my room, there she was crying, and wouldn't come down again for ever so long. She's a regular little fuss-bunch ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... messengers hither and thither, and that in the afternoon a boat had hoisted sail and put out for the fishing fleet, thinking that Simon Peter might be able to give tidings of Master Joseph. But why all this fuss? Joseph said, because I come home a little later than usual. Your father, Master Joseph, is beside himself, and your grandmother—Joseph left the man with the end of the sentence ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... am SATISFIED," she kept repeating to herself. The words, somehow, seemed to carry a reproach with them. "Why shouldn't I be satisfied.? I have no more rights in the room than the other students about me; that is, I thought I hadn't until I heard what he said. How foolish for him to cause all this fuss about nothing, and make me ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Hotze, the confidential agent of the Confederacy in London, stated, "the Trent affair has done us incalculable injury," Russell is now "an avowed enemy of our nationality[500]." Hotze was over-gloomy, but Russell himself declared to Lyons: "At all events I am heart and soul a neutral ... what a fuss we have ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the poorest man in England was not more likely to be hung for a murder he had not committed than the richest. "Then why would you, if you were accused, have ever so many lawyers to defend you?" Mr. Low went on to explain. "The more money you spend," said the Duchess, "the more fuss you make. And the longer a trial is about and the greater the interest, the more chance a man has to escape. If a man is tried for three days you always think he'll get off, but if it lasts ten minutes he is sure to be convicted and hung. I'd have Mr. Finn's trial made so long that they never could ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... fuss, or begin to think. Run away and interview the head waiter. Then you are to buttonhole Bower and the American. I am just sending ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... Hindus made himself obnoxious on the campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for India—howling over deportation. Our American boys wouldn't stand for it. A policeman saw the fuss—came up and started to put the Hindu in his place. Then Madeline rushes in, and it ended in her pounding the policeman with ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had sounded in M. de Fouchy's ear, without any fuss, without showing himself offended in his self-love, remaining apparently modest, this learned man, in asking for an assistant, selected one who had not undertaken to repeat his eloges; who had not found his biographies insufficient. This preference ought not to be, and was ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... always believed that Annie was jest as crazy about Dick as the rest o' the gyirls, but she had sense enough not to let him know it. It's human nature, you know, to want things that's hard to git. Why, if fleas and mosquitoes was sceerce, folks would go to huntin' 'em and makin' a big fuss over 'em. Annie made herself hard to git, and that's why Dick wanted her instead o' Harriet Amos, that was jest as good lookin' and better in every other way than Annie was. Everybody was sayin' what a blessed thing it was, and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... beat!" Aunt Maria exclaimed as the two girls skipped joyously up the path and disappeared over the summit of the hill. "I thought sure she'd raise a fuss, but she ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... the hand of man was made to wield the sceptre of imperial power over this magnificent world, it becomes a gross impropriety to divert it from the path of destiny into so futile an effort as hooking up a mere bit of fuss, feathers and fallals. You might just as well hitch up a pair of thoroughbred elephants to a milk wagon. It will do, as Adam says, for the Mollycoddle and the meticulous weakling, but never for a real man worthy of the name. But after all that is no reason why woman should be ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... *weened wisly* that he shoulde die. *thought certainly* For which this miller stole both meal and corn An hundred times more than beforn. For theretofore he stole but courteously, But now he was a thief outrageously. For which the warden chid and made fare*, *fuss But thereof *set the miller not a tare*; *he cared not a rush* He *crack'd his boast,* and swore it ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... my father came in and asked what all the fuss was about. I told him that we had caught a young white baboon, and he was angry, and said that it must be let go. But when he looked at it through the bars of the window he nearly fell down ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... to the main road they came on a man of my father's who was ploughing, and this somehow brought back remembrance of the wrong. He sent the man away on a message, and began to swear at the tax-gatherer again. When I heard of it I was disgusted that he should have made such a fuss over a miserable creature like O'Donnell; and when I heard a few weeks ago that O'Donnell's only son had died and left him heart-broken, I resolved to make my father be kind to him next ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... "Now then, no fuss about it!" said the officer in charge, with brutal directness. "You might as well make a clean breast of Mike's share in that murder downstairs—Larry the Bat, here, has already told us the whole story. Come on, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... it may be asked, should not the palm be given to Mr. Darwin if he wanted it, and was at so much pains to get it? Why, if science is a kingdom not of this world, make so much fuss about settling who is entitled to what? At best such questions are of a sorry personal nature, that can have little bearing upon facts, and it is these that alone should concern us. The answer is, that if the question is so merely personal and unimportant, Mr. Darwin ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... a certain keen inquisitiveness about the eyes. The mouth was firm; yet there were gentle lines of grace about it. In spite of her coarse, dark calico garb, made in no particular fashion except with an eye to covering with the least possible fuss and trouble, she was graceful. Every movement was alert and clean-cut. When she turned to look full in his face, he decided that ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... quick spear-thrust only spells "dead," without comment. But glory in death is even more a matter of luck than fame in life. At all events, Captain Bowring, as brave a gentleman as ever faced fire, had perished like so many other brave gentlemen of his kind, in a quiet way, without any fuss, beyond killing half a dozen or so of his assailants, and had left his widow the glory of receiving a small pension in return for his blood, and that was all. Some day, when the dead are reckoned, and the manner of their ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... of the average silliness that surrounded us in those days: the fraternity goings on at the universities, the swilling, the duelling. And what was all the noise about? It was about Hecuba, as Fips used to say. Well, we at least, didn't make a fuss about Hecuba; we had our attention, fixed on the highest aims of humanity. And, in addition to that, those silly times cleared me thoroughly of all prejudices. I took my leave of sham religion and sham morality and ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... a double house so's they would be right close together all the time. Well, they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They started the fuss and it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green—such an outrage you never saw—and a big fence down the middle of the front yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and land knows what all. They wouldn't even go to the same ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... slopes, in places almost as green as the Lowlands or Yorkshire fells, I looked south-east far over Natal—a parched, brown land like the desert beyond the Dead Sea, dusty bits of plain broken up by line upon line of bare red mountain. It seemed a poor country to make a fuss about, yet as South Africa goes, it is rich and even fertile in its way. Indeed, on the reddest granite mountain one never fails to find multitudes of flowering plants and pasturage for thinnish sheep. Across ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... Mother was dead, and her Grandma took care of her, and was very kind to her, and Emily loved her dearly, and so she made up her mind to go and have her teeth out, without any trouble, because her Grandma was in bad health; and she knew that if she cried and made a great fuss about it, it would trouble her, and perhaps make ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown

... too far off that night to know whether I had thrown away a paper-weight or a sand-bag. Moreover, the object had been swathed beyond recognition in the extra that was primarily responsible for all this fuss. "He is sorry for me," I decided. "He thinks the girl has made a fool of me." Instead of experiencing gratitude, I felt more galled and ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... sister herself?" inquired Mrs. Bateson. "I expect she's a bit upset now that the fuss is all over, and she hasn't a daughter left ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... that he disapproved of money and property and everything that makes life worth living. . . . Sometimes he simply terrifies me, Derek." She sipped her cocktail plaintively. "But I feel it's my duty to make a fuss of him and feed him and that sort of thing, for all our sakes. It may make him postpone the Revolution. . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... old duffer," said he, looking at me in a stupid, expressionless sort of a way, "you are not hurt yet. I'll give you something to cry about if you don't quit making such a fuss over nothing. You're the ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... Quartermain, again. Or over Dinghy Abbs, who was down and out in the second round in spite of all the fuss that was made about him beforehand. I was a sick man at both these fights. Not a soul knew it, mind you. My wife—for I'm as fond of home life as any ordinary man, and we have a little baby—my wife used to worry terribly. She'd ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various

... the river in the first 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 take ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... and began to cry and wail as women do. Ho! but he made a great fuss. He ran along the bank of the river, stumbling in the snowdrifts, and crying like a woman whose child is dead; but it was because he didn't want to be left in that country alone that he cried—not because he loved his brother, the ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman

... spluttered her way up the river, kicking up the white water behind her, and making more noise and fuss over her five knots an hour than an Atlantic liner on a record voyage. On deck, under the thick awning, sat her little family of passengers, and every few hours she eased down and sidled up to the bank to allow them to visit one more of that innumerable succession of temples. The remains, however, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... noble, I'm sure,' observes Mrs Pipchin; irascibly rubbing her nose. 'But I know this—that when people meet with trials, they must bear 'em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to bear myself, in my time! What a fuss there is! She's gone, and well got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think!' This hint of the Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when Mrs Pipchin rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr Towlinson, not having seen Miss ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... like men; and I like girls. So that I never want anybody to be hurt at this very delicate and dangerous game of love-making. But somebody always is getting hurt, and although she never makes any fuss about it, ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... "It hadn't. If you had all waited a few moments you would have had all three men in conference round one of those tables, and they could have been taken with far less fuss and bother—and far less danger to me. It's the greatest wonder in the world that I'm not lying ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher

... am so sorry; I am afraid that trouble may come out of this fuss, and then it is so wrong and unlady-like for you to be quarrelling that way. Do you know how ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... been most splendid knowing you here. I don't think I'd ever have got through Dawson's if it hadn't been for you. It's a hell of a place and I suppose if the mater hadn't been abroad so much I should never have stayed on. But it's no use making a fuss. Besides, it's only for a little while—one will have forgotten all about ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... glanced casually over the top of her paper, she saw him draw a hand across his face; but, still vexed, she took no warning from the sign. "Well, there's no need of making a fuss, is there?" she asked, rebukingly. Thus showing how distasteful the subject had become, and, having had her say, she instantly changed the topic. "You're coming home Thursday night, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... Coroner's inquest been called?" inquired the woman. When he answered, "No," she lifted her hands in astonishment, and exclaimed, "Well now, I do declare! If anybody else had done it, there would have been a great fuss made about it; but you are a privileged man, Mr. Hopper." When he was about to walk away, he turned round and said, "I did not mention to thee that the robbers I killed were two mosquitoes." The woman had a good laugh, and he came home as pleased ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... drawing to Susan in the presence of her mother and sister, or on some occasion when they two might be alone together? No such occasion had ever yet occurred, but Aaron thought that it might probably be brought about. But then he wanted to make no fuss about it. His first intention had been to chuck the drawing lightly across the table when it was completed, and so make nothing of it. But he had finished it with more care than he had at first intended; and then he had hesitated when he had finished it. It was too late now for that plan ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope

... stay," he whispered, his lips close at my ear. "Reckon best thing we kin dew now is to find one o' the sojers' root-caves somewhar along the bank, an' crawl in thar till daylight. The Injuns ain't so likely to bother us when the guards kin see 'em from the Fort. They don't want no out-'n'-out fuss, to my notion, till they kin git inter the stockade for good. Creep 'long yere with me, sonny, an' 't won't be far till I find a hole somewhar thet 'll hide ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... Jest the same to me and you; 'Taint worth while to make no fuss, 'Cause the job's put up on us! Some one's runnin' this concern That's got nothin' else to learn— If he's willin', we'll pull through. Say ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... thank you very much," she said. "I must be getting back to give Sir Peter his. I shall be late as it is, and I shall probably hear him swearing all down the drive. We shall all be seeing more than enough of each other before long. But there's no use making a fuss about it, is there? We're a most disagreeable family, and I'm sure it'll be worse for you ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... like the power; I like the fun; I like the fuss; and above all I like the money. I almost like the people who make the fuss and pay the money. Almost. But they're a queer ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... upon the poor shop-boy, wept, clutched myself by the throat to punish myself for my miserable trick, and behaved like a lunatic. He had naturally been in the most deadly terror for the sake of his situation; he had not dared to make any fuss about the five shillings that were lost to the business, and I had taken advantage of his fear, had tortured him with my violent address, stabbed him with every loud word that I had roared out. And the master himself had perhaps been sitting inside ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... Burke, who had a dozen army reminiscences to exchange with him, and bidding as small a good-by as decency permitted to Logan. Marjorie heard him dash up again, and then run down, as if he had left something outside the door and forgotten it. Lucille came over to her and began to fuss at her about changing her frock for a heavier one, ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... woman," he said, with assumed humility, his eyes glistening with anger, "if you do not want me to stay, I suppose I shall have to go. I did not come to make any fuss; I only came to take my wife home where I can take care of her. She seems to think she can get along without me. All right—I am willing she should try it for a while. She has my address, which is more than I had when she left me without ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... room always ready for me, and I like it at the Dexters' almost as much as I do at the county home. So I don't really need Kenyon's money, however much joy he takes in giving it. And I raise the devil's own fuss to keep him from ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... official dinners with which a Governor-General is accustomed to entertain his subordinates. "Alas," thought the army of tchinovniks, "it is probable that, should he learn of the gross reports at present afloat in our town, he will make such a fuss that we shall never hear the last of them." In particular did the Director of the Medical Department turn pale at the thought that possibly the new Governor-General would surmise the term "dead folk" to connote patients in the local hospitals who, for want of proper preventative measures, had died ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... things into the dining-room now," he said. "And your bed covering. We can make up a sort of couch there, for you may as well be comfortable if you can. And you know, it's on the cards that all our fuss is in vain. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... young generation is coming down to destruction. You can't believe a word they speak. I think they do get married some. They have a colored preacher and have jes' a witness or so at home. Most of them marry at night. They fuss mongst theirselves and quit sometimes. I don't know much about young folks. You can't believe what they tell you. Some work and some don't work. Some ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... resistance of the souls of men to the law of progress which is always, and everywhere, laying hold of them to force them from the sod up to God. They squirm, and wriggle, and howl, and make no end of fuss, because the Lord calls upon them to awake from their animalism, and sloth, and arise, and seek ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... been brought to the bar of the House of Lords: he is far from having those abilities for which he has been so cried up. He saw Mr. Pelham at a distance and called to him, and asked him if it were worth while to make all this fuss to take off a gray head fourscore years old? In his defence he complained of his estate being seized and kept from him. Lord Granville took up this complaint very strongly, and insisted on having ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... leetle fellow—with a soft 'eart and a soft 'ead. Not your sort. And, you're not 'is sort. 'E's frightened of you. 'E want someone who pat 'is 'ead and let 'im cry on 'is shoulder. You can't 'elp 'im—and you fuss over 'im—you come 'ere and try to put 'is 'eart affaires in order and it's no use ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... the crowd that had collected. She was evidently frightened—I felt her hand trembling on my arm—but she had one great merit; she made no fuss about it. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Fuss" :   commotion, dustup, bickering, hassle, bother, worry, care, perturbation, trouble, pother, agitation, stir, spat, rumpus, words, flap, dither, scruple, flurry, run-in, row, fuss-budget, disturbance, give care, niggle, ruction, wrangle, bustle, tizzy, ruckus, tiff, squabble, quarrel, overprotect, bicker, pettifoggery



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