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Fuss   /fəs/   Listen
Fuss

noun
1.
An excited state of agitation.  Synonyms: dither, flap, pother, tizzy.  "There was a terrible flap about the theft"
2.
An angry disturbance.  Synonyms: bother, hassle, trouble.  "They had labor trouble" , "A spot of bother"
3.
A quarrel about petty points.  Synonyms: bicker, bickering, pettifoggery, spat, squabble, tiff.
4.
A rapid active commotion.  Synonyms: ado, bustle, flurry, hustle, stir.



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"Fuss" Quotes from Famous Books



... would make a fuss when he missed it, but that very night the house in which he lived was burned to the ground. Peter escaped with the most important of his goods and chattels, but all the counterfeit presentments of his dear ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... it. She seemed to meditate plunging into the rest of the drove with head down and with tidings of the disaster, but she must have concluded that since the other cow was dead, it wasn't worth while to make any fuss over it; for she dropped her head and resumed her grazing as though she had no ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... conduct of the French troops and the French nation. Our conception of the French people derived from books, chiefly novels of a questionable nature, are entirely wrong. The French soldier is cool and intrepid and they "carry on" their work without the slightest "fuss." The pose of the nation is an inspiration and speaks ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... dreams and slow movement and putting things off till to-morrow. The only really energetic thing it had ever done in its whole history had been to expel his late highness, Prince Charles, and change itself into a republic. And even that had been done with the minimum of fuss. The Prince was away at the time. Indeed, he had been away for nearly three years, the pleasures of Paris, London and Vienna appealing to him more keenly than life among his subjects. Mervo, having thought ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... of all that is wonderful, Mr. Bluenose," said the Reverend Doctor Folliott, as he walked out of the inn, "what in the name of all that is wonderful, can those fellows mean? They have come here in a chaise and four, to make a fuss about a pound per annum, which, after all, they leave as it was: I wonder who pays them for their ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... up and jarred into the private car with a snarling, grating sound. Brownleigh put Hazel on the steps and helped her up. Her father was hurrying towards them and some train hands were making a great fuss shouting directions. There was just an instant for a hand-clasp, and then he stepped back to the platform, and her father swung himself on, as the train moved off. She stood on the top step of the car, her eyes upon his ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... to run before there's anything to run away from." Jack's lips began to show the line of stubbornness. "I haven't quarreled with the Captain, except that little fuss a month ago, when he was hammering that peon because he couldn't talk English; I'm not going to. And if they did try any funny work with me, old-timer, why—as you ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... Brace,—no fear o' dem leabin dis ole Cat'maran, so long's de be a-gwine on dat fashion. Looker dar! Fuss to one side, den de todder,—back and for'rad as ef de cudn't ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... of you too! There's no danger in leaping over a dry ditch four feet wide, so why should you make a fuss about the same distance because it ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... you know, Oriel, I never was so sleepy in my life. What with all that fuss of Gazebee's, and one thing and another, I could not get to bed till one o'clock; and then I couldn't sleep. I'll take a snooze now, if you won't think it uncivil." And then, putting his feet upon the opposite seat, he ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... me? Whether I sink with the vile, or swim with the good? No! I'll tell you what you are thinking of, Maurice." She lays her hand upon her throat quickly, as if stifling, yet laughs gaily. "You are thinking that that little idiot may hear of my being here, and that she will make a fuss about it—all underbred ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... her voice and made so much fuss that the purchasers filling the shop were interested, and began gazing at the girl with envious eyes. It was popularity bursting out again around her, a popularity which ended even by reaching the street when the landlady went to the threshold of the shop, making signs to the tradespeople ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... a lad, nine or ten years old. Bostick had a big gin-house, barn, stables, and such like. And when de soldiers come a goat was up on de platform in front of de door to de loft of de barn. Dere were some steps leadin' up dere and dat goat would walk up dem steps same as any body. De fuss thing de Yankees do, dey shoot dat goat. Den day start and tear up eberyt'ing. All de white folks had refugeed up North, and dey didn't do ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... An they're makkin a famous to do,— They say,—Providence treated her shabby— Shoo wor fairly entitled to two. But judgin bi th' fuss an rejoicin, It's happen as weel as it is; For they could'nt mak moor ov a hoilful, Nor what they are makkin ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... Buffum, "that folks made a great fuss about his gettin' away from here and never bein' found. I thought 'twas a good riddance myself, but people seem to think that these crazy critturs are just as much consequence as any body, when they don't know a thing. He was always arter our dinner horn, and blowin', and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... love with him. Now do yer know what interest I've got? I'm with the Red-coats, an' if I can turn a trick fer that side I'm a-goin' ter do it. You'll be blessin' me fer it some day. Now, see here, girl, I'm a-goin' ter marry yer off before leavin' this house. I reckon yer ain't intendin' to make no fuss about it, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... he dines; he talks of it to his children, to his apprentices, to his customers. He called on me to convince me of it, and said I was only prevented from becoming a complete convert by one or two prejudices. He knows no more about it than a pikestaff. Why then does he make so much ridiculous fuss about it? It is not that he has got this one idea in his head, but that he has got no other. A dunce may talk on the subject of the Kantean philosophy with great impunity: if he opened his lips on any other he might be found out. A ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... should we like to be in its place?" asked Matthew, "away from our family, confined from our native sports, shut up from the free air and hills, though they would feed us well and fuss over us? I want to let down the bars now, and see how quickly it will scamper ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... more evidence,' objected Mr. Jenkins. 'What did they want to make so much fuss about ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... open, as I thought," said he. "But apart from that she isn't damaged any. A little work'll make her as good as new. And in the stern is that box with the piston-rod in it. I'd have hated to lose that, after all this fuss. Things might have turned out a good deal worse, eh, Perce? But the next time I'll know enough to hang ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... 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, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... whooping-cough and measles at the same time, and quite as badly as himself. But, then, she had not sprained her wrist or lamed her foot; so it was no wonder her temper had not suffered. Besides, it was expected of girls not to make a fuss. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the Thames Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those parts, or at least stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends upon the Fussyites, whose business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... along. Don't you worry. All this is up to me and Maria Dodge and Abby Daggett and a few others. You haven't got one blessed thing to do with it. All you've got to do is to preach as well as you can, and keep us from a free fight. Almost always there is a fuss when women get up a fair. If you can preach the gospel so we are all on speaking terms when it is finished, you will earn your money ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... all its fume and fuss, and roar of steam, and stench of oil and burning coal. It had to go quietly and slowly on account of the snow which was falling, and which had fallen ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... was Victor's—a steady forward advance of the whole body held firmly, almost rigidly—the walk of a man leading another to the scaffold, or of a man being led there in conscious innocence, or of a man ready to go wherever his purposes may order—ready to go without any heroics or fuss of any kind, but simply in the course of the day's business. When a man walks like that, he is worth observing—and it is well to think twice before ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... and give more thought and attention to what was going on in that superbly shaped head of his—about her, about her and him. "Oh, I don't just know," replied she, quite honestly. "It seems to me now that there'll be too much fuss and care and—sham. And I intend to interest myself in your work. You've hardly spoken of ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... that grows a bit. Some people would like to have every business tied down to a maximum turnover and so much a year profit. I dare say you've been hearing of these articles in the London Lion. Pretty stuff it is, too. This fuss about the little shopkeepers; that's a new racket. I've had all that row about the waitresses before, and the yarn about the Normandy eggs, and all that, but I don't see that you need go reading it against me, and bringing it up at the breakfast-table. A business is a business, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... How noisy and clumsy are all their movements,—chopping, pounding, rasping, hammering. And, after all, what do they build? In the forest we do everything so quietly. A tree would be ashamed of itself that could not get its growth without making such a noise and dust and fuss. Our life is the perfection of good manners. For my part, I feel degraded at the mere presence of these human beings; but, alas! I am old; a hollow place at my heart warns me of the progress of decay, and probably it will be seized upon by these rapacious creatures as an excuse for ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... could do anything with them, and now you go and set her back up! She's fit to rouse the place out of spite, she is. And I can tell you I'm not going to get myself into trouble about these children you've made such a fuss about. I've not seen them yet, and rather than risk anything I'll be off," and he, in turn, seemed as if ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth

... 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 ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... very well for you, Alice; you were always poking over books, and I dare say you will write them some day, or be a blue-stocking. But I've got another year to study and fuss over my education, and I'm going to enjoy myself all I can, and leave the wise books till ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... of it. But he never knew what he was dloin'—he wus crazy as a loon. There's nuthin' fer yer ter fuss over now. Tell us about it, Gates—the bath must have ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... worn and tired, but she assured Sylvia somewhat sardonically that she was not feeling any worse than usual. The heat and the drought had been very trying, and her husband's accident had given her more to do. She had fainted the evening before, and he had been frightened for once and made a fuss—quite unnecessarily. She was quite herself again, and she hoped Sylvia would not feel she had been ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... 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 rumours of ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang

... tenement that night? Had not they all been breaking their loving, anxious hearts about Bonny Laddie, and lo! here he was, safe in the old red cape, smiling and shining as usual, and rather mystified at having such a fuss made ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the other is disliked by every person in the ship. The King is very kind and affable, giving no unnecessary trouble, and mixing freely with the midshipmen and sailors: many a luncheon has he partaken of in the den of the former. His brother, on the contrary, is all fuss and superciliousness; and the very first morning after he embarked, the captain was compelled to read him a practical lecture on the necessity of complying with the established regulations. He had been told that, as punctuality was a ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... work wid an ould woman nagglin' and grizzlin' and faultin' me? [She removes the red table-cloth.] Mate-plates, butther-plates, kosher, trepha, sure I've smashed up folks' crockery and they makin' less fuss ouver it. ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... cat, "a rat who knows he has but a few minutes to live, never makes a fuss about a little agony. I don't think, my fine fellow, you have taken poison enough to hurt ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... rather you'd have her, Lem, 'cause ye'll beat her and make her wish a hundred times a day that she'd drowned herself. I say, if ye let me fix this thing, ye'll come out on the top of the heap. If ye don't, she'll raise a fuss, and, if that damned governor gets wind of it, he might catch on that the kid be his. He'd run us both down afore ye could say jackrabbit. Ye let Flea alone till I say ye ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... tell you the truth, ours don't get quite so sick as this, owing, no doubt, to the superior salubrity of our climate. You might throw sods into them all day, and they wouldn't make such a fuss about it as the Strokhr makes about a mere handful. Their digestion, you see, is ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... other hand, there is the hostess who announces her intention of regarding her visitor as "one of the family," "making no fuss" on account of her being in the house. This sounds much better than it works out in actual practice. Unless we are prepared to modify our routine in accordance with our friend's pleasure and convenience, at least to some extent, we should not invite her. We do not ask people ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... bright production dies discarded which might have been made thoroughly presentable by a single day's labor of a competent scholar, in shaping, smoothing, dovetailing, and retrenching. The revision seems so slight an affair that the aspirant cannot conceive why there should be so much fuss about it. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... commonplace about it—for poor Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland dog! He was full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even while he was turning the key in the lock, to "fuss," as Athalia said, over some last details of the transfer of the sawmill. Athalia could not tear herself from arms that placidly consented to her withdrawal; so there had been no rending ecstasies. In consequence, on the journey up to the community she was a little morose, ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... you—I heard our poet say— He'd try to coax some moral from his play: "One moral's plain," cried I, "without more fuss; Man's social happiness all rests on us: Through all the drama—whether damn'd or not— Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot. From every rank obedience is our due— D'ye doubt?—The world's great stage shall prove it true." The cit, well skill'd to shun domestic strife, ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... it's perfectly absurd for me to take boarders, with all our money; and she's making a terrible fuss about where we live. She says she's ashamed—positively ashamed of us—that we haven't moved into a ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... fuss, anyway, Mother. It is what Jamie has been looking for and expecting, and I am glad he has won ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... it, it was found to be missing, and as no one but the police seemed to be to blame for its loss the matter was hushed up and would have been regarded as too insignificant for comment, the trinket being intrinsically worthless, if Mr. Moore had not continued to make such a fuss about it. This ball, he declared, was worth as much to a Moore as all the rest of his property, which was bosh, you know; and the folly of these assertions and the depth of the passions he displayed whenever ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... end of a year he had become the Providence incarnate of that quarter of the town. He was a member of the Benevolent Committee and of the Charity Organization. Wherever any gratuitous services were needed he was ready, and did everything without fuss, like the man with the short cloak, who spends his life in carrying soup round the markets and other places where there are ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... you come along down yonder?" Cynthy went on, making a great fuss with the shovel and tongs to very little purpose. "Ha' you come all the way ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... home about daylight to find Nan, terribly anxious, waiting up for him. He brushed away her anxiety with the usual masculine impatience at being made a fuss over, gave a brief account of the fire—omitting mention of his narrow escape—and insisted that she go to bed. After a few moments she obeyed, and immediately fell asleep. Keith bathed himself and changed, made a cup of coffee, and wandered about rather impatiently waiting for time to ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... speaking, a bad priest can not make his condition any worse by making all the trouble he possibly can. If he knew anything at all he should know that he can hope to gain nothing by inciting a set of ignorant people to riot. In Buffalo the fuss had its origin from a clerical source, and in Detroit a man with an outlandish name, whom the herd seem to admire, is acting anything but prudently. Perhaps only one-half of what is sent over the wires can be regarded ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... sample of Rossiter,' he said. 'You'd think from the fuss he's made that the business of the place was at a standstill till we got to work. Perfect rot! There's never anything to do here till after lunch, except checking the stamps and petty cash, and I've done that ages ago. There are three letters. You ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... them was the business of women—that, and not reading German poetry and playing the piano. They all made a little fuss at the outset, but then they submitted, and they soon found that Nature knew more than they. Babies completed women's lives, they settled their nerves; they gave them something to think about, and saved them from hysteria and extravagance ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... yet understood me? Look here! The stag must not have an inkling that you are very anxious about him; and much less a woman. You make too much fuss about the women. Children must not know how dearly one loves them; anything but that! But women even less so. In reality, they are nothing but grown-up children, only more shrewd. And the children are already shrewd enough.—Sit down, Robert, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... and Bel were greatly pleased, and gave Hemstead credit for being a "very sensible young man, who, having been shown his folly, could act like a gentleman and not make a fuss." ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... Attwater. 'That was why I had her married. A man never knows when he may be inclined to be a fool about women; so when we were left alone, I had the pair of them to the chapel and performed the ceremony. She made a lot of fuss. I do not take at all the romantic ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... be no ceremony, gentlemen," she exclaimed in her musical voice, hastening toward them. "I detest all formalities. I have had a surfeit of them in Vienna, and intend to breathe natural air here in the country, without 'fuss or feathers,' with no incense save that which rises from burning tobacco! This is why I avoided your parade out yonder on the highway. I want nothing but a cordial shake of your hands; and as regards the official formalities of this 'installation' ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... town; and yet how much care is spent to make the station house comfortable and comely! I may here say that nowhere in Europe is railway travelling so entirely convenient as in Germany, particularly in Prussia. All is systematic and orderly; no hurrying or shoving, or disagreeable fuss at stations. The second class cars are, in most points, as good as the first class in England; the conductors are dignified and gentlemanly; you roll on at a most agreeable pace from one handsome station house to another, finding yourself ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the mail—she supposed Cameron had already made application—and a little party with a few of their closest friends on the campus. She wished she had lived in the days when getting married was much easier to do, and something to make a fuss about. ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones

... Majesty thinks a journey to Holland, to visit one's Kinsfolk there, and incidentally speak a word with the High Mightinesses upon Pfalz, would not be amiss. Such journey is decided on; Crown-Prince to accompany. Summer of 1738: a short visit, quite without fuss; to last only three days;—mere sequel to the Reviews held in those adjacent Cleve Countries; so that the Gazetteers may take no notice. All which was done accordingly: Crown-Prince's first sight of Holland; and one of the few reportable points of his Reinsberg life, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... fuss out on the porch, crying, when he saw his toy lying at the foot of the steps, that the boy's mother hurried out to see what the ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope

... that sound which apparently got on the nerves of most of those present in the deck saloon, of course it was a disagreeable noise, but then they all knew it was a necessary precaution, so why make a fuss ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... on. It was determined to settle on her face, and she was determined it should not. Its persistence was uncanny. It woke her, and would not let her go to sleep again. She hit at it, and it eluded her without fuss or effort and with an almost visible blandness, and she had only hit herself. It came back again instantly, and with a loud buzz alighted on her cheek. She hit at it again and hurt herself, while it skimmed gracefully away. She lost her ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... into a fuss with the hands over on the railroad, and have sent for me. I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... strong; and she's kept us always. Of course R. Grosvenor (I'm not going to say 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

... a fine treat to the searcher after life and manners, to have observed the rough and ragged scene that was now before us. The kitchen at times was crowded to excess; and, amid the clattering of plates, fuss of cooking, and confusion of tongues, men, women, and children, feasting, drinking, singing, and card-playing, while some two or three might be seen wiling away the painful effects of an empty pocket by a soothing whiff from the favourite cutty, occasionally a half naked brute, in the shape ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown

... per us'l. That's the third night this blessed week. I 'old with goin' to chapel, but like everything else it ought to be done in moderation. Mary's gettin' beyond everything. I don't believe in makin' such a fuss o' religion; you can be religious in your mind without sayin' prayers an' singin' 'ymns all the week long. There's the Sunday for that, an' I can't see as it's pleasin' to God neither to do so much of it at other times. Now suppose I give somebody credit in ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... had worked on it all one rainy morning shortly before, a cool, gusty morning, the last gasp of spring before the present first hot spell of summer. Aunt Cindy had discovered him wet to the skin and made a great fuss about it. ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... had no intention of offending you by asking for your wife; I will give you a wife, if you want one, and I thought you might have no objection to give me yours; it is my custom to give my visitors pretty wives, and I thought you might exchange. Don't make a fuss about it; if you don't like it, there's an end of it; I will never mention it again." This very practical apology I received very sternly, and merely insisted upon starting. He seemed rather confused at having committed himself, and to make amends he called his people and ordered ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... be objected, "why make all this fuss, why take so much thought about what I eat or what I do not eat?" The special thought is simply to be taken at first to get into the normal habit, and as a means of forgetting our digestion just as we forget the washing of our hands until we are reminded by some ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... heard no complaints," answered the squire. "I appointed Timothy in your place because I approved of rotation in office. It won't do any good for you to make a fuss about it." ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger

... the Stranger-man (a genuine Tewara of Tewar) into the Tribe of Tegumai, because he was a gentleman and did not make a fuss about the mud that the Neolithic ladies had put into his hair. But from that day to this (and I suppose it is all Taffy's fault), very few little girls have ever liked learning to read or write. Most of them prefer to draw pictures ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... Lawyer Ed and he laughed loudly. "Tut, tut, Jock! It's a small thing to make a fuss about. You and Jimmie McTavish and a lot more of you fellows are dead set against all sorts of things that you accept in the end. Why, man, I can remember the day when you two objected to the little organ in the old church, and you got used to ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... him. He says he hates still worse to see my hands get rough—but I am so thankful that I am not one of those girls (like Abby Goode) who are forever thinking of how they look. But Oliver made such a fuss about the fires that I didn't tell him that I went down to the cellar one morning and brought up a basket of coal. The boy didn't come the day before, so there wasn't any to start the kitchen fire with, and I knew that by the time Oliver got up and dressed it would be too late to have ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... through his set teeth, "but, by the powers, I'll chance it! If we happen to be mistaken, why, I'll make the skipper a handsome apology; if he's a true man, that ought to satisfy him. Mr Bartlett"—to the boatswain—"cast off that drag and get it inboard over the port-rail with as little fuss as may be, so that if those fellows in the brig are watching us they may not know what we're about; I want to keep that conthrivance a saycret as long as I can. Be as smart as you like about it. Mr Dugdale, I want twenty men to arm themselves ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... that's always going on, and a lot of the cattlemen, and Dad among 'em, seem to shut their eyes to the thefts. I'm not going to do that. But what I started to say was that, up to now, the raids have been small ones. Very likely they thought we wouldn't make much fuss over the steers ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... not that I know of; all the returns from this State are not in yet, of course not from the others; besides, do you think I'd make such a fuss about politics?" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... time, but I didn't want to make a fuss. I changed a sovereign for Ole yesterday, and I believe Sanford has bought him up. Never mind; we take the right hand road here, and as long as we keep moving I haven't ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... and is standing silently listening. The roses in her cheeks have paled, indeed, and her blue eyes look large and frightened; but, unlike me, she makes no crying fuss. With noiseless dispatch she arranges every thing for our departure. Neither will she hear of Algy's dying. He will get better. We will go to him at once—all three of us—and will nurse him so well that he will soon be himself again; and whatever happens (with a kindling of the eye, and ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... knew one who quit and quite recovered from the hankering to go back. I think you're right, Skinner. This yacht is just a symptom of Matt's disease. He realizes his business interests tie him to the beach; but if he has a sailing yacht that he can fuss round with on week-ends in the bay, and once in a while make a little cruise to Puget Sound or the Gulf of Lower California, he figures he'll ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... last morning but one, when the boys came down to breakfast, they found Queen Mab making a great fuss over something that had ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... hero, but that is not his idea about himself. He is just a Tommy, home on leave from France—one of a hundred thousand, maybe. And if he thought at all about the way his home folk greeted him it would be just so—that he could not expect them to be making a fuss about one soldier out of so many. And, since he, Jock, is not much excited, not much worked up, because he is seeing these good folk again, he does not think it strange that they are not more excited about the sight of him. It would be if they ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... village who is idle or neglected or forgotten? That those who wanted to enlist have been encouraged and told how to, and that those who didn't want to have been shown other ways of helping? That it's all been done without any fuss or high-falutin or busy-bodying, and chiefly because of an absurd husband of mine who never talks seriously about anything, but somehow manages to make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... said. "The Queen of Navarre has no troops and, even if a few hundreds of Huguenots joined her, what could she do? As to Conde and the Admiral, they have been hunted all over France, ever since they left Noyers. They say they hadn't fifty men with them. It seems to me they are making a great fuss about nothing." ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... felt that she had not been entered as 'Irene, late the wife,' or 'the divorced wife,' 'of Soames Forsyte.' Altogether, there had been a kind of sublimity from the first about the way the family had taken that 'affair.' As James had phrased it, 'There it was!' No use to fuss! Nothing to be had out of admitting that it had been a 'nasty jar'—in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the Lad would swell up and spring a hot One about the Swede and the Irishman, while Bernice would fuss with the Salt and wonder dimly if the Future had aught in store for her except ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... I'm all right here, an' I don't see why you can't let me stay here. I ain't made no fuss. Seems as if you thought it was fun f'r me to go 'way off there where I don't know anythin' an' where I ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... without mentioning names, and he handed them over with a grin. No fuss over passports or custom-house, though we had carefully provided cause! This was beginning badly, and we were disappointed at our ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... and don't make any fuss about it. You're better off here than in the trenches, aren't you? We've heard enough from ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... the title by the prefix "Fool's." Nowhere is the child so constantly in evidence; nowhere are his wishes so carefully consulted; nowhere is he allowed to make his mark so strongly on society in general. The difference begins at the very moment of his birth, or indeed even sooner. As much fuss is made over each young republican as if he were the heir to a long line of kings; his swaddling clothes might make a ducal infant jealous; the family physician thinks $100 or $150 a moderate fee for ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... cautious to say that that warfare of his is to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. Almost every word he utters, and every distinction he makes, has its significance. He means for the Republicans who do not count themselves as leaders, to be his friends; he makes no fuss over them; it is the leaders that he is making war upon. He wants it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really his friends. It is only the leaders that are doing something that ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... 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 ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... what to do now: instead of all this trumpeting and fuss, which is only the old parliamentary-majority dodge over again, just you go, each of you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give up t'other line), and quietly make three or four friends—real friends—among us. You'll find a little trouble ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... go!" interrupted Tom; "fuss and feathers, silks and satins! I was the 'Prince,' wasn't I? and that's the very same thing! Besides, I've been 'Cupid' over and over again, because I'm the only one who can hang head downward from the clothes-line as though I was flying. ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... his head, or make his nose bleed, or cut his fingers, I shall show no alarm, nor shall I make any fuss over him; I shall take no notice, at any rate at first. The harm is done; he must bear it; all my zeal could only frighten him more and make him more nervous. Indeed it is not the blow but the fear of it which distresses us when we are hurt. I shall spare him this suffering at least, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... whip" when he went with women, he loved war for its own sake, and he dwelt alone on the top of the mountains. To Milton the world presented itself as a place where the dominant power, and the dominant interest, was the wrestling of will with will. Why need we always fuss ourselves about logical names? Milton, in reality—in his temperament and his mood—was just as convinced of Will being the ultimate secret as Schopenhauer or Nietzsche or Bergson or the modern Pragmatist. ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... to be 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 ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... already on deck came running up to have a look for himself. It was our escort. Darting across our bows they came—low-riding, slim, gray bodies. The ranking one reported to our flag-ship; and all, without any fuss or extra foam, took position and went to work as though they had been there for weeks. And as they did our big war-ship and the little ones which had come across with her wheeled about and went off. There was no ceremonious leave-taking. ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... delicate boy, subject to bronchitis. The others were all quite strong; so this was another reason for his mother's difference in feeling for him. One day he came home at dinner-time feeling ill. But it was not a family to make any fuss. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... friend of its young sovereign, who was just entering on a career which may fairly be called illustrious. Weimar was and is "more like a village bordering a park than a capital with a court, having all courtly environments." The representation it gave of the formalities, the "fuss and feathers" of a court, was on the most minute scale. But with a certain pride, well understood, a German historian has said, that after Berlin there is no one of the countless courts of Germany of which the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... franker and more in the open to have it so. If worse comes to worse we can talk the whole thing out with our families, and tell them how we feel. I am sure both your father and mine are too big to spoil a friendship like ours because of some fuss they had years and years ago. No, sir! I'm going to hold on to you, Bobbie, and," he added shyly, "I'm going to hold on to your father, too, if he'll let me, for ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... was our wrongs, John, You didn't stop for fuss,— Britanny's trident prongs, John, Was good 'nough law for us. Ole Uncle S., sez he, "I guess Though physic's good," sez he, "It doesn't foller thet he can swaller Prescriptions signed 'J.B.' Put up ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... was going to send to his brother. The miserable creature had scarcely any spirit or courage left, and generally when I visited him he used to begin crying. I put up with him as well as I could, though. One day when I was with him he handed me a paper, with considerable fuss, and said I was not to open it till after his death. Not long afterward he died. I opened the paper, and found that it contained only this cipher, together with a solemn request that it should be forwarded to his brother. I wrote to Neville Pomeroy, telling him of his brother's ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille



Words linked to "Fuss" :   agitation, commotion, perturbation, scruple, tumult, pettifoggery, run-in, give care, quarrel, disturbance, words, wrangle, row, dustup, din, rumpus, ruction, ruckus, worry, care



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