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Fluster   /flˈəstər/   Listen
Fluster

verb
(past & past part. flustered; pres. part. flustering)
1.
Be flustered; behave in a confused manner.
2.
Cause to be nervous or upset.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fluster" Quotes from Famous Books



... stir and fluster, this pain and agony and striving, there should be nothing exceptional about Peter? What rock to ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... her head and ran into the kitchen. The governor's sudden visit stirred and overwhelmed the whole household. A ferocious slaughter followed. A dozen fowls, five turkeys, eight ducks, were killed, and in the fluster the old gander, the progenitor of our whole flock of geese and a great favourite of mother's, was beheaded. The coachmen and the cook seemed frenzied, and slaughtered birds at random, without distinction of age or breed. For the sake of some wretched sauce ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... old woman chides her; she deserves it; She'll not pick up admirers if she plays My Lady Cool so grandly. Watch mamma. The hook is nicely baited; where are all The gudgeons it should lure? I marvel not Mamma is in a fluster; tap, tap, tap, See her fan go! No strategy, no effort, No dandy-killing shot from languid eyes, On that girl's part! And ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... had only gone out to hunt and would soon return; she requested them to take her rifle, load it and leave it with her new mother to defend herself, and bring over the remaining four guns. These tidings put the camp in a fluster. Young Mayall proceeded to pattern after his wife, stripped, and commenced carrying blankets, guns, ammunition, tomahawks and knives. In a short time all that was needed was over, each one armed, ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes

... for ostler there was none—and in musing amongst the simply decorated graves in the humble churchyard;[9] after discussing with great relish our repast of eggs and bacon, and Welsh ale, the best the village afforded, (by the way, we shall not readily forget the fluster of our Welsh hostess when we talked of dining on our arrival at the little hostelrie) we then rode down to the sea-shore, intending to cross the sandy beach of Oxwich, which extends several miles, on our return to the Gower ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... is a farce, without a doubt! The cause of all this fuss and fluster Is just a housemaid shaking out ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

... d'na want to fluster ye, but she's been ower lang wi' Lisbeth Fargus no to hae learnt her ways. An a'body kins what a life T'nowhead ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... masterpieces now she had ample leisure for seeing them, but Easter services, royal birthday processions, or battles of flowers. As she seldom broke her routine of idleness, these occasions excited her, not with pleasurable anticipation, but with a nervous fluster that she might somehow miss something; and the concierge, the porter, Madame, and the head-waiter, would all be flying about the hotel half an hour before it was necessary for her to start, sent on some perfectly useless errand connected with her outing. If it rained, ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... were almost certain to betray them; but although some rifles began at once to crack spasmodically and the bullets to whistle overhead, each man went on with the allotted program steadily, without haste and without fluster, devoting all their attention to the proper igniting of the bomb-fuses, and leaving what might follow to take care of itself. As his length of fuse caught, each man said "Ready" in a low tone; Ainsley immediately said "Light!" and each instantly directed the jet of sparks ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... off in fifty years hence than they are now, nor will presenting to them bread, cheese, ale, blankets, stockings, and a dry sermon, as Mr. Crabb did half a century ago, render them permanent help. We must do as the eagle does with her young: we must cause a little fluster among them, so that they may begin to flounder for themselves. Take them up, turn them out, and teach them to use their own wings, and the schoolmaster and sanitary officers are the agencies to do it. The men are clever and can get money sufficient ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... declared that she was quite free to look without buying, and that he did not want her to buy, Mrs. Lake allowed him to pull down his goods as before, and listened to his statements as if she had never proved them to be lies, and was thrown into confusion and fluster when he began to bully, and bought in haste to be rid of him, and repented at leisure—to no purpose as far as ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... her head, aware of a small fluster of guilt. There had been considerably less actual coverage in the Beldon costume than there was in the minute two-piece counterpart to Brule's silver trunks she wore at the moment. She'd have to tell Brule about the Beldon stunt, since it was more than likely ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... the origin of the fluster came in, looking, it must be confessed, not much more amiable than his voice had been: he was extremely pale, too, his blue eyes had hollow rings round them, and there were tired wrinkles on his forehead. However he offered Laura a friendly ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... mite!" declared Mrs. Sykes. "The man ain't born that can fluster Mr. Macnair. Nor yet the woman, unless it's Esther Coombe—Land sakes, Doctor! I forgot to tell you how that cup tips! Ann, get a clean table napkin. I hope your nice white pants ain't ruined, Doctor? ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... by his own hopes, as even shrewd men will be sometimes—either did not notice the fluster I was in, or thought to set matters all right with me in his own way; for when he found that I remained silent he took up the talk himself again, and went on to show in detail the profits of a single venture with a live cargo—and his figures were certainly big enough to fire the ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... "He comes to the office in a fluster and says: 'First, Rome.' I says: 'There ain't no first Rome, Roma you mean.' 'You know what I want,' says he, and when he took his change I noticed his hands was snowy white: he had a ring on and I could hear the gold chinking in ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... the thought. Why should we fluster ourselves, why wax so hot, when time thus brings its inevitable revenges? Composed in mind, let us pursue our own unruffled course, with calm assurance that justice will at length prevail. Let us comply with the dictates of sweetness and light, in reasonable expectation that iniquity will melt ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... child, you did set me all into a fluster. I thought maybe you'd got into one of your tantrums, and come off and left ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... kneel, in such a fluster was I—"my brother hath now brought tidings that the Scots come in force by the Aire Valley, with all speed, and are nearhand at the very ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... garlands were hung from ceiling and wall; The Yule log was laid, the tables arrayed, And the Lady Lorraine and her whole cavalcade, From the pompous old steward to the scullery-maid, Were all in a fluster, Excitement and bluster, And everything ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... one. But not now. "We might both of us die," says Mrs Boffin, "and other eyes might see that lonely look in our child." So of a night, when it was very cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she would wake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, "Don't you see the poor child's face? O shelter the poor child!"—till in course of years it gently wore ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... my brave Boy, thou shall't have any thing; we'll be merry as mony'd Sailors over a Bowl o'Rum Punch, fluster'd as their Whores, and frolicksom, 'till we have spent all, drink Confusion to all Grand-mothers, and if the old Cat pretends to Ptysick it much longer, we'll get an Act of Parliament ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... not leave that spot—standing statue-like and looking along both roads—until I heard the rumble of the departing train, and then I repaired to the Old Hall, my soul uplifted. I found Jone in an awful fluster about my being out so late; but I do stay pretty late sometimes when I walk by myself, and so he hadn't anything ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... till I could rear with the pain. Then off again, and at last, all hot and angry, we dash up to the station, and the man inside leaps out and throws up the money and runs off. Then my master strokes me down, and says: "Jenny, old girl, I'm sorry to fluster you so, but we must make a bit for the bairns at home, eh, old girl?" And he pats me, and I'd bite his hand if I could. As if I cared about his bairns! And so it goes on all day long, and at night I'm in a nasty ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... "bashful" about taking up the work, let us make this suggestion: In the seclusion of your home or elsewhere, draw the first scene of your talk completely. Thus you will have plenty of time to make it to suit you, with no one to look on and fluster or confuse you. Then cover up the completed work, by placing another sheet of paper over it. When you appear before the audience to give your talk, give your spoken introduction and lead up to the first scene. ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... Thea's sister Anna professed religion with, as Mrs. Kronborg said, "a good deal of fluster." While Anna was going up to the mourners' bench nightly and asking for the prayers of the congregation, she disseminated general gloom throughout the household, and after she joined the church she took on an air of "set-apartness" that was extremely trying ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... administered. In its flurry it must have disturbed one of the dye-secreting molluscs, which had escaped my notice, for in a few seconds the water was richly imbued. Thereupon both the sharks began to manifest great uneasiness, and eventually with fluster and splashing they worked among the fissures of the coral and shot out into the unimpregnated sea. The sharks seemed to find the presence of the forlorn groveller in the mud unendurable when it stained the water red, though apparently indifferent to its presence as long, as it remained ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... of geese there. Patch thought he would have a bit of fun with the geese one day, so he set off to chase them. There was a great fluster and spreading of wings, and they waddled off a few yards; then they turned suddenly and faced him, stretching out their long necks and hissing, at which Patch turned tail and ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various

... was grey. He could survey himself cynically and wonder why he had been such a fool as to be in a fluster overnight. Faith, it was a grand exploit to dabble in conspiracies and come out with your head still (for a while) on your shoulders. And that only by a turn of the luck, not any wit of his. Well! Neither winners nor losers would ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... Fossell, a nervous body in a cap with lilac ribbon, rose in some little fluster, and opined that it was almost time to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... and betrayed fluster. It was not easy to relate her story; besides it was wofully incomplete. She knew nothing of what had happened down town, she could only tell what had passed before her eyes. But there was one thing she could make clear, to ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... of thought for him as any lover for his mistress; giving him his arm, telling him where to put his foot down so as to avoid the mud, warming the bed for him, lighting a fire in his room, making his supper ready. The next day, after he had done his best to fluster his son's wits over a sumptuous dinner, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, after copious potations, began with a "Now for business," a remark so singularly misplaced between two hiccoughs, that David begged his parent to postpone serious matters until the morrow. But ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Fluster" :   flurry, disconcert, put off, confuse, acquit, behave, ruffle, carry, deport, discomposure, comport, bear, conduct



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