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Cussed   Listen
adjective
cussed  adj.  Stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing; obstinate. (Slang or Colloq., U. S.) Note: (Narrower terms: unregenerate (vs. regenerate), unregenerated)
Synonyms: obdurate, obstinate, perverse, unrepentant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cussed" Quotes from Famous Books



... licking i ever had. well jest as we were going to get in the wagon the man whitch had the tin pail and the stool in his hand come driving up and said we had been pluging roten eggs at his barn and father said he wood be cussed if he ever saw such boys, and me and Beany said we dident mean to hit the barn but we pluged at the cat and dident hit her. then the other men told him about the horse and cows and he said it was only roten eggs and then they felt beter, and they said ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute

... loafin' in the bunk-house, ole Demijohn crawls up to his bunk and asks him, whisperin', if he ain't most always give John a good time when they met up. John cussed, but 'lowed that Demijohn was right. Then Demijohn took to pullin' at young John's sleeve and askin' him to come to town and have a good time. Pretty soon John gets up and saddles his cayuse and fans it for town. And that time him and Demijohn ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... person than Augustus Bythewood, who had received his commission the day before. Well might Lysander, at the mention of him to whom both these aspiring officers owed everything, bend a little and listen. Ropes proceeded. "He feels a cussed sight badder now he believes the gal is in a cave somewhars with the schoolmaster, than he did when he thought she was burnt up in the woods. He entirely approves of your conduct last night, and says Toby must be ketched, and the ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... been better livin long time ago den dere be now. Know it cause I didn' never have no worryations no time when I was comin up. My God, child, I couldn' make a support today if I know my neck had to be hung on de gallows. No, mam, dis here a sin cussed world de people livin in dis day ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... knowing the road would know how to manage and what to expect and work for, and could get out successfully. But the general opinion of all but Mr. Bennett and Mr. Arcane and their families was, as expressed by one of them:—"If those boys ever get out of this cussed hole, they are d——d fools if they ever come ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... shining, continued climbing. I couldn't get any farther, and I was thinking of coming down; but as I made a movement, biff!... The son of a sea-cook grabs me with one of his many legs by the coat and remains there hanging from me. The cussed critter was as heavy as lead; he was already reaching up after me with another claw when I remembered that I had in my vest pocket a toothpick that I had bought in Chicago, and that it had a knife attachment; I opened this, and in a moment slashed ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... from camp on Montagnais Lake, 1 mile west to another lake. No signs of Indians here. Camped at west end of this. Saw two caribou. Dropped pack and grabbed rifle; was waiting for them 250 yards away when a cussed little long-legged bird scared them. At point near camp where lakes meet, I cast a fly, and half pound and pound fontanalis, as fast as I could pull them out. What a feed at 2 P.M. lunch. Climbing ridge, saw that lake empties by little strait into another small ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... of the country," began the innkeeper, "the white settlers did all they could to civilize the Indians, but the cussed savages wouldn't take to it kindly, but worried the life out of the new-comers. At last a great landed proprietor, who held a big grant of land in these parts, thought he'd settle the troubles. So he planted a brass cannon near the creek, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... down to the cussed drink, mister, and you won't be far out," said he, laughing mockingly, so as to disguise what he really felt by the avowal; "but," he added, to turn the conversation, "you speak very good English for a German, which I ken ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... enormous log, thirty or forty feet long and two or three feet thick, was given him to pull through the mire, he would roar mightily at each hard place, getting down on his knees sometimes to use his strength to better advantage, and one could hardly escape the conclusion that at times he "cussed" in violent Elephantese. The king of the group, a magnificent tusker, pushed the logs with his snout and tusks, while the others pulled them with chains. But the most marvellous thing is how the barefooted, half-naked driver, or mahout, astride the great giant's shoulders, makes him ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... sich a cussed fool as ter git stuck fer?" replied the two heads; and in spite of the disapproval conveyed by the question, the stranger boat was driven as rapidly as possible close beside the packet, the result being a long wave or "swell," enabling that luckless craft ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... knowin' to it that Cap'n Sproul has got thutty thousand in vessel prop'ty of his own, 'sides what his own uncle Jerry here left to him. Gid Ward has trompled round this town for twenty-five years, and bossed and browbeat and cussed, and got the best end of every trade. If there's some one come along that can put the wickin' to him in good shape, I swow if this town don't owe ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... on my hands. He wouldn't accept charity, he said. And he wanted to beat it. He got wise to my mother. He wouldn't give up trying to get money from the government—back money owed him, he swore—and the idea of being turned down at home seemed to obsess him. I talked and cussed myself weak. No good! Red beat it soon after that—beat it from Middleville on a freight train. And I never heard a word ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... old Dan, "a fellow thinks well of himself, or else his neighbors tell him he can save the nation, and he puts a piece in the paper saying how good he is and sets pictures of himself up in store winders like a cussed play-actor, keeps a cash account, and thinks that's politics. I don't care if there ain't ever no more caucuses. This thing ain't going to last. I want to keep in the field. I'll see chances to heave trigs into the spokes of these hallelujah chariots ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... cussed, Texas horned toad! Haw, thar! ye bull-headed son of a gun, pull ahead! Whoa! Haw! Ye long-horned, mackerel-back cross between a shanghai rooster an' a mud-hen, I'll skin ye alive in about a minute!" The pop of a bull-whip ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... the men in these heah parts was half men," said his wife, "I tell you whut they'd do. They'd git out and tear up every foot of this heah cussed railroad track, an' throw it back into the cane. That's whut ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... thet cried out fer peace an' law-abidin' war scoffed at an' belittled.... Them of us that preached erginst bloodshed was cussed an' damned. Then come ther battle at Claytown ter cap hit off ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... it all his own way, Smooth not having a chance to put in a word edgewise. 'But, seem' how you cussed Yankees has upset everything in trade along the coast, I isn't so rich as I used to be. There wor a time when my little store was as good a gold mine as you could turn up in Californey; I could get any kind of a price for goods; and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... rifle. They were 250 yards away and partially hidden by the timber, and as they were approaching him, he waited, believing he would get a better shot. But, while he was waiting, what he called a "cussed little long-legged bird" scared them off, by giving a sharp, shrill cry of alarm, which the deer evidently were clever enough to construe as meaning that something out of ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... can't understand is where all those cowpunchers are," continued Sims. "I'm plenty sure they wouldn't let us through if we was within a foot of the river, they're that cussed." ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... ridden right up to old Aaron Honeycutt's gate, shot off his pistol, and dared little Aaron to come out and fight. Little Aaron wanted to go, but old Aaron held him back, and Jason sat on his nag at the gate and "cussed out" the whole tribe, and swore "he'd kill every dad-blasted one of 'em if only to git the feller who shot his daddy." Old Aaron had behaved mighty well, and he and old Jason had sent each other word that they would keep both the boys out of the trouble. Then Arch had brought ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... stuff fer a rainy day; we Hed plenty; the diggins wuz rich, an' wuz thick Scattered over the kentry. Most every crick Hed plenty o' gold in nuggets or dust— An' the man who wuz stingy hed ort to be cussed. So I ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... neither read nor write, but had a good head for figures and was very pious. His life had a wonderful influence upon me, though I was originally worldly—that is, I drank and cussed, but haven't touched a drop of spirits in forty years and quit cussing before I entered the ministry ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... surprised me. But all Pap sez wuz that he hated to go out in the rain. So Jasper he said fer him to wait till hit stopped rainin'. Pap said all right, he would, an' fer Jasper to hand over the pouch and flask. Jasper cussed an' said he'd give 'em to him three hours after sunrise the nex' morning' an' not a minute sooner, an' he wuz to stay away from the house all that time or he wouldn't give 'em to him at all. Well, they argued fer some time about that an' finally Pap said he'd go out to the hoss shed an' sleep ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... his head under the lifted tent-flap. "Say, I can't find that cussed Three-H bottle," he complained. ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... cow-bell with us ain't in no danger of starvin'. I'm gwine down to Orleans to see if I can't git a contract out of Uncle Sam to feed the boys what's been lickin' them infernal Mexicans so bad. I s'pose you've seed them cussed lies what's been in the papers about the Indiany ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... went on quietly, but with a certain curiosity in his eyes, "that's all right, but I reckon you were mistaken. Bent didn't want to rush ye; 'twas only his cussed way, and he'd had mighty bad luck. You might hev waited to see if he meant anythin', mightn't ye?" And he looked his listener in the ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... remarked, as a steep grade forced them to lessen their speed, "I can get my two hands on that cussed tin-horn, Moran. Him and me has a ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... why should we kick up a muss About the Pres'dunt's proclamation? It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us, Ef we don't like emancipation: The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It's common (ez a gin'l rule) To every critter born ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... their eyes on you every day. But I'm awful bothered about Lahoma. I tell you, it ain't right to keep her shut up as in a cage. Can't you see she's pining for high society such as I ain't got it in me to supply, and you are too cussed obstinate to display?" ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... in some respects than Mrs. Bugsby's own. "Was there ever such devil's own luck, Mrs. G.? It's only a fortnight ago as I read in the Sussex Advertiser the death of Miss Barkham, of Barkhambury, Tunbridge Wells, and thinks I, there's a spoke in your wheel, you stuck-up little old Duchess, with your cussed airs and impudence. And she ain't put her card up three days; and look yere, yere's two carriages, two maids, three children, one of them wrapped up in a Hinjar shawl—man hout a livery,—looks like a foring cove I think—lady in satin pelisse, and of course ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Pete. "I'm sick o' gettin' kicked and cussed every time I come near him. He licked me with a rawhide ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... to Wallace's and get the best turn-out he has, and I guess we'll cut a dash.' Then he got in his cab and drove away. Neither me nor Joe envied him his tenner. Next day Dick came up to the stand looking terrible black. He cussed and swore, and looked as if he'd had a big drop too much. 'Have a good time last night,' says I to him, civil like. 'No, blast yer; go to—' he says. I never spoke no more, but after a bit he comes up to me and says—'Terry, those beggars had me last night; ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... said: "Well! here is your baby! I was just in time, for that Injun of yours left the carriage in the middle of the street, to look in at the store window, and a herd of wild cattle came tearing down! I grabbed the carriage to the sidewalk, cussed the Injun out, and here's the child! It's no use," he added, "you can't trust those Injuns ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... managed for to take off his hat, but he was in-about the worst-whipped-out white man I ever see. And arter the carriage got out of hearing, sir, he stood in that there door there and cussed plump tell he couldn't cuss. When a man's been to Congress and back, he's liable for to know how to take the name of the Lord in vain. But don't tell me about the wimmen, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... "No knowing what these cussed foreigners won't do," growled Wilder, and added something about being blown up before his prisoner, that brought a frown to ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... torvous^, crusty, crabbed; sour, sour as a crab; surly &c (discourteous) 895. moody; spleenish^, spleenly^; splenetic, cankered. cross, crossgrained^; perverse, wayward, humorsome^; restiff^, restive; cantankerous, intractable, exceptious^, sinistrous^, deaf to reason, unaccommodating, rusty, froward; cussed [U.S.]. dogged &c (stubborn) 606. grumpy, glum, grim, grum^, morose, frumpish; in the sulks &c n.; out of sorts; scowling, glowering, growling; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... is prominent and well known, and has got money in the bank! Folks can't help laughing—they just naturally can't, Ive! You'll be setting there in court, looking ugly as a gibcat and her lawyer reading them things out. Them cussed lawyers ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... Bacchus; "I'd rather he'd a burned 'em up. Kent's so cussed mean, I don't b'lieve he'd 'low his flowers ground to grow in if he could help hisself. If Miss Nannie'd let him, he'd string them niggers of hers up, and wallop their gizzards out of 'em. I hate these Abolitioners. I knows 'em,—I knows ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... feet. "I believe you are right, sir, that cussed firing has brought the natives down upon them. They would not want to keep on firing at the monkeys. We shall hear in a minute if they fire again. They have all emptied their pieces. If they load quick and fire again it will be a bad sign. There they are!" he broke off as two ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... just as I said, and knowed it would, through Starlight's cussed flashness and carryin's on in fine company. If he'd cleared out and made for the Islands as I warned him to do, and he settled to, or as good, afore he left us that day at the camp, he'd been safe in some o' them 'Merikin places he ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... it's done for. It makes a man feel like a damn' kitten in a bag. Now, I'd like to know what the eternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow, unless it was to give the rebs a regular pot shot at us. We came in here and got our legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to fight and the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just luck! I know ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... too, for ten years agone. Ay, Dick, it's true, jist as I tell you: there has been a dozen or more Injun warriors struck and scalped in our very wigwams here, in the dead of the night, and nothing, in the morning, but the mark of the Jibbenainosay to tell who was the butcher. There's not a cussed warrior of them all that doesn't go to his bed at night in fear; for none knows when the Jibbenainosay,—the Howl of the Shawnees,—may be upon him. You must know, there was some bloody piece of business done in times past (Injuns is the boys for them things!)—the murdering ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... o' grey wolves, an' a swamp rabbit, an', darn the thing! a stinkin' skunk. Perhaps the last wan't the most dangerous varmint on the groun', but it sartintly wur the most disagreeableest o' the hul lot, for it smelt only as a cussed polecat kin smell. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... words the old man told her; she did not hear them really. She was making an end of all her doubts of Louis; she knew, quite definitely, that whatever misery or degradation might come to her in the future, whatever wild or conceited or cussed or tropical thoughts had brought her to this dull little chapel to-night, God was quite surely making her His pathway, walking over her life with shining feet, burning out all the less fine things that did not belong to Him. She woke up to feel Louis fumbling with her ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... here, you black devil!" cried the pedlar, turning fiercely round upon the negro. "Am I to be deafened by your cussed croakin'? Don't mind him, ladies and gentlemen—pay no attention to him. Who cares about a nigger? He only cries out for his amusement. It's all his tricks and cunnin'; he'd like to git some more of my sarve on his black ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... the chap said when the donkey kicked en. ''Taint the stummick that I do vally,' he said, ''tis the cussed ongratefulness ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... from San Francisco, where 'e won 'er at draw poker!—me who had watched over 'er for years w'en the scoundrel she belonged to was ashamed to acknowledge 'er and treat 'er white!—me who for her sake kept 'is cussed secret till it ate 'im up!—me who w'en you poisoned the beast fulfilled 'is last request to lay 'im alongside 'er and give 'im a stone to the head of 'im! And I've never since seen 'er grave till now, for I didn't want to meet ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... four cannons. There was not settin' down room on the boat. They captured my master and sent him to prison. First they put him in a callaboose and then they sent him on to prison and they took me to help them. They made a waitin' boy of me. I didn't lack none of 'em. They cussed all the time. I heard they paroled my master ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... without a row—and we kin. We ain't got no bullies of our own to fight back, and they know it, so they know they won't get no credit bullyin' us; they'll leave, if we're only firm. It's all along of our cussed fool good-nature; they see it amuses us, and they'll keep it up as long as the whisky's free. What we want to do is, when the next man ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... successful because the Coyotes sought the plains, and were easily caught by the Greyhounds. He told of killing some small Gray-wolves with this very pack, usually at the cost of the one that led them; but above all he dwelt on the wonderful prowess of "that thar cussed old Black Wolf of Sentinel Butte," and related the many attempts to run him down or corner him—an unbroken array of failures. For the big Wolf, with exasperating persistence, continued to live on the finest stock of the Penroof ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... a week before we had all been down On a jamboree to the nearest town, An' the whiskey joints and the faro games An' a-shakin' our hoofs with the dance hall dames, Made a wholesale bust; an', pard, I'll be cussed If a man in the outfit had any dust. An' so I explained, but the youth replied That he'd lay the money matter aside, An' to show that his back didn't grow no moss He'd bet his machine ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... the story, an' how them critters sot up for to thieve away our stores, he got kinder riled at the hull crew, like a common-sense feller, an' when Pitcairn come along, George finally struck his colors, run up a new un to the mast-head, borrered a musket, an' jined the milishy, an' got shot by them cussed reg'lars fur his pains; an ef he doos die, I'll hev a figger cut on a stun myself, to tell folks he was a rebel and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... I laid there readin' by the light of a bit of tallow dip the mate gave me, who should stick his head into the hole he called a cabin, but old Twist! He'd got an idee I was shammin'; and when he saw me with a book, he cussed, and swore, and raved, and finally hauled it out o' my hand and flung it up through the hatchway ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... Cash woke him by stumbling across the floor to the water bucket. Bud arose then and swore at him for a fool and sent him back to bed, and savagely greased him again with the bacon grease and turpentine. He was cheered a little when Cash cussed back, but he did not like the sound of his voice, for all that, and so threatened mildly to brain him if he got out of bed again without wrapping a blanket ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... "It's dat ar cussed infunnelly party at Lockemup—last Toosday!" said Jenny, as she cleared away the tea service—"a-screwin' up tight in cusseds an' ball-dresses! an' a-dancing all night till broad daylight! 'sides heavin' of ever so much unwholesome 'fectionery trash down ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... I love the student, that air all! An', 'Satisfied,' I air a cussed brat to be swearin' when Frederick says as how it air wicked. I keep forgettin' when I ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... and tuk it all in. This yere Norris had foun' out that Mistah Morse was shippin' gold from his mine to-day on the Fort Allison stage, and he gits yore paw to go in with him an' hold it up. Yore paw cussed and said as how 't wus his ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... "That cussed little runt," remarked Ross tenderly, "is the Jo-dartin'est hustler—and the hardest hitter in anybody's ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... to go, & takin' my young Southern fren' kindly by the hand, I sed, "Yung man, adoo! You Southern fellers is probly my brothers, tho' you've occasionally had a cussed queer way of showin' it! It's over now. Let us all line in and make a country on this continent that shall giv' all Europe the cramp in the stummuck ev'ry time they look at us! ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne

... by half a length, and holding her own as she drew near the three-mile flag, where the Frolic swung and tugged at her anchors. But it must be admitted that the sympathies and hopes of all in the Frolic centered in the Yale shell; a Yale coach had drilled and scolded and "cussed" and petted the Navy boys to victory only a few weeks before, and Ralph, if no one else, felt that all his future rested in the ability of that Yale coach "to knock some ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... nearly four o'clock." Then, noticing her look of disappointment, he went on to say: "But that shan't make any difference. I'll send you over in my nephew's automobile. I'm not sufficiently up-to-date to own one of the cussed—excuse me things, but he does and I borrow it occasionally. I don't drive it; good heavens, no! But his man shall drive you over and I'll guarantee you beat the train. If you don't, it won't be because you go too slow. Now, of course, you'll ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... you the worst, an' then you'll know. There's been a lot o' gossip goin', gossip about my cargo. I give out as I'd none but ship's stores and ballast, an' I give out a lie. I don't mind tellin' you now. I give out a cussed lie, but I give it out for the good o' the ship! What was the use o' frightenin' folks? But where's the sense in keepin' it back now? We have a bit of a cargo," shouted Harris; "and it's gunpowder—every damned ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... the slave-dealer. I've bought many a nigger from a Custis when it was impolite to sell 'em, Judge, so they let me run' em off, and cussed me for it to the public. An' that's made me onpopular, Judge Custis, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... guards, two or three being also stationed within at the side door of each car. In the darkness about half-past nine Lieut. Joseph B. Simpson of the 11th Indiana slyly stole all the food from the haversacks of the guards at the door of our car and passed it round to us, while we loudly "cussed and discussed" slavery and secession! About midnight Captain Lockwood, Lieutenant Driscoll, and eight or ten other officers leaped from the cars. The guards opened fire upon them. Lockwood was shot dead. Several were recaptured, and some probably reached the Union lines in safety. We ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... up Sammy in a pretty passion. "Mrs. Polwhele's a lady, and I reckon your cussed rudeness upset her. I say nothing of your face, for ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Potosi didn't talk straight that British consul would have bent a gun-bar'l over the old ruffian's bean and telephoned for a couple hundred battle-ships. England protects her sons. But we Americans are cussed with notions of brotherly love and universal peace. Bah! We're bound to have war, Dave, some day or other. Why not start ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... happy enough to—to—to swear! "I understand—perfectly" said Bob McGraw, and there is no doubt that he did. The idea of a glorious young Woman like Donna swearing was, indeed, perfectly ridiculous. Of course, nerve-racked tired waitresses and be-deviled chefs "cussed each other out" as a regular thing up at the eating-house during a rush, and Donna, having listened to these conversational sparks, off and on, for three years, felt now, for the first time, as she imagined they ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... out what I'd taught him during the day and the eraser he used was booze. So one fine day I dropped the hammer after watchin' him make a botch on a big bar, and cussed him up one leg and down the other. The Scotchman had a hang-over from the night before and he made a pass at me. It was too much for me just then, for the day was hot and the forge fire had been spitting cinders in my face all morning. So I took him ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... swore the madder he got, And he riz and he walked to the stable lot, And he hollered to Tom to come thar and hitch Fur to emigrate somewhar whar land was rich, And to quit raisin' cock-burrs, thistles and sich, And a wastin' ther time on the cussed land. ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... very first night. I'm getting to depend on her. I'm plumb foolish about her now—can't let her out of my sight; and yet I'm off my feed worryin' over her. Gregg is getting dangerous—you can't fool me when it comes to men. Curse 'em, they're all alike—beasts, every cussed one of them. I won't have my girl mistreated, I tell you that! I'm not fit to be her mother, now that's the God's truth, Reddy, and this rotten little back-country cow-town is no place for her. But what can I ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... nothin' to git excited over, but it's wuth follerin'. If I wasn't so cussed unlucky I'd know there was a pay streak som'ere ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... said Steve. "They'll be a-whoopin' down out O' them woods purty soon, 'n' we re goin to ketch hell. I'd like to know mighty well who that spy was last night. That cussed Bud Vickers says it was a ha'nt, on a white hoss, with long hair flyin' in the wind, 'n' that he shot plumb through it. I jus' wish I'd a ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.

... think he'll soon hev a bit o' fightin'. An' 'specially as it's to be agin ole Santy, the durned skunk. By the jumpin' Geehosofat! if Cris Rock iver gits longside him agin, as he war on't San Jacinty, there wan't be no more meercy for the cussed tyrant, same as, like a set of fools, we Texans showed him thar an' then. Tell them what ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... follers: "You pussylanermus critters, go way from me and take this retchid woman with you. I'm a law-abidin man, and beleeve in good, old-fashioned institutions. I am marrid & my orfsprings resemble me if I am a showman! I think your Affinity bizniss is cussed noncents, besides bein outrajusly wicked. Why don't you behave desunt like other folks? Go to work and earn a honist livin and not stay round here in this lazy, shiftless way, pizenin the moral atmosphere ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... once wrote him a letter pouring out on his head the invective of which he was so conspicuous a master. Wilson brought the letter into the office of a dear friend of mine in Boston when I happened to be there, handed it to us to read, and observed: "That is a cussed mean letter." I do not think he ever spoke of it or ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... Well, I said: 'Fire out the slabs, and let the men get out o' the way.' And he began firing, and I kept my side a-goin', and the slabs fell flat and heavy and fast, knockin' six at a shot, till they cussed and swore, and hollered and yelled murder, and that was the last we two saw of the Mushrats and the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... a bite 'fore he'd jerk her up to try 'n' get somethin'. 'N' the queerest part was, he seemed to enjoy it just 's much 's if he'd brought down a three-hundred-pound buck to drag the wind out o' Erne 'n' me at th' end o' a tump-line. Most fellers 'd got mad 'n' cussed their luck. But not him—kindest, sweetest-tempered man I ever knew. Guess he knowed we'd done our best 'n' had some kind o' secret inside ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... in bed, rubs my eyes, opens my ears and listens agin, when whop went every shutter agin, with a dead heavy sound, like somethin' or another thrown agin 'em, or fallin' agin 'em, and then comes the unknown tongues in discord chorus like. Sais I, 'I know now, it's them cussed navigators. They've besot the house, and are a givin' lip to frighten folks. It's ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... with the hospital stuff," he said furiously. "Left it out there on the road. Came in here to tell you about it; and when I go back the cussed thing isn't there. Found all the stores in a beastly bullock cart. The people said that a Serb officer had come along, turned all our stuff out, and gone off with the motor. * ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... dared trust his weight. The bear was climbing out after him and the limb was bending too much for safety when Ari yelled at the bear: 'Go back, you d——d fool. You'll break this limb and kill both of us. Want to break your cussed neck, goldarn ye?' ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... pickle; couldn't speak a word of Spanish or Visayan. And the first thing he said when I had extricated him, thanks to my vituperative knowledge of these sweet tongues, was: 'If them niggahs, seh, think Ah'm a-goin' to learn their cussed lingo, they're mahtily ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... Noy an' bound by God A'mighty to wait for en if 'twas a score years. But if faither had knawed I weer never for Noy, he'd a' said more'n that. I ban't 'feared o' faither now I knaws you, Jan, but I be cruel 'feared o' bein' cussed, 'cause theer's times when cusses doan't fall to the ground but sticks. 'Twouldn' be well for the likes o' you to have a ill-wished, awver-luked body for wife. An' if faither knawed 'bout you, then I lay ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... me of the advice he had received, and the plans he had laid. I asked if he had money enough to take him to Canada. "'Pend upon it, I hab," he replied. "I tuk car fur dat. I'd bin workin all my days fur dem cussed whites, an got no pay but kicks and cuffs. So I tought dis nigger had a right to money nuff to bring him to de Free States. Massa Henry he lib till ebery body vish him dead; an ven he did die, I knowed de debbil ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... die o' fright through being caught in a trap, just as the poor little beggars do, and turns it up without being hurt a bit. I can't help it; I'm a beastly coward; and I says it out aloud for any one to bear. That's it—a cussed coward, and I can't help it, 'cause I was born so. He's gone, and I shan't never find him agen, and there's nothing left for me to do but sneak back to the fort, and tell the Colonel as we did try, but ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... at last woke up and wiped out them cussed Digger Minyos," said Snapshot Harry, as he laid down the newspaper, in the brand-new saloon of the brand-new town of Redwood. "I see they've stampeded both banks of the Minyo River, and sent off a lot to the reservation. I reckon the soldiers at Fort Cass got sick o' sentiment ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte

... his head slowly, and with theatrical effect answered, "I give the cussed scoun'rel the doggonest drubbin' a mortal maleyfactor ever got and let him go. That was nearly two weeks ago, and he ain't showed up ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... disciple of Job, but he tried manfully to restrain himself. Turning to Glenholdt, who was offering advice, he said, "You get out. I know what the trouble is: these horses used to belong to a freighter and are used to being cussed. It's the greatest nuisance in the world for a man to go out where there's a bunch of women. If these women weren't along I'd make these horses ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... went on, while the other bent over his unaccustomed work. "We get all sorts. You can't figger anything this time of year, except it'll be a hell of a sight more cussed than when winter's shut down tight. I once knew a red hot chinook that turned the whole darn country into a swamp in April, and never let it freeze up again. I once broke trail at Fort Duggan at the start of May on open water with ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... said Strout. "You know when I come back, you see it was so cussed hot, yer know I said it was the heat, but I knew they wuz there. Mrs. ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... Drake ran on. "See here, kid, this race means everything to the colonel—everything in the world. Every cent he has is at stake; his honor, his life, his daughter's happiness. He's proud, cussed proud, and he's kept it mum. And the girl—Miss Desha has bucked poverty like a thoroughbred. I got to know the facts, picking them up here and there, and the major knows, too. We've got to work in the dark, for the colonel would die first if he knew the truth, before he would accept help even ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... son has ritten this atrosius epissle and you shall pay for it sir, you shall pay for it. well all the peeple in the store were lissening and i was a geting mad and so i sed well decon i know you aint drunk for you are to cussed meen to pay for a drink and so i gess you must be crasy but to keep you from going cleer out of your mind i will read the leter and i was sirprized. but i tried to smooth it over and sed now decon do you supose for one minit that i ever thougt that of you, mutch less sed it? and he sed yes sir ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute

... guns just ripped lead at us, and we were hurrying to get to the trench, when young Blair got it through the thigh. He started to yell at the top of his voice; and Scottie, who happened to be next in line, cussed him roundly for the noise he was making. We would likely have been all killed if he hadn't shut up. Well, they bound him up and carried him out, and the ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... dusty road from Denver town To where the mines their treasures hide, The road is long, and many miles, The golden styre and town divide. Along this road one summer's day, There toiled a tired man, Begrimed with dust, the weary way He cussed, as some folks can. The stranger hailed a passing team That slowly dragged its load along; His hail roused up the teamster old, And checked his merry ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... boarded over with the best of the weather-bleached old siding. For when you haven't the luxury of a hill on your landscape, you can at least make an imitation one. Whinnie even planed the board-joints in the center of the runway and counter-sunk every nail-head—and cussed volubly when he pounded his heavily mittened thumb with the hammer. The finished structure could hardly be called a thing of beauty. We have only one of the stable-ladders to mount it from the rear, and instead of toboggans we have only Poppsy's home-made hand-sleigh and Dinkie's ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... at him pugnaciously for a moment. "For one cent, Bill," said he, "I'd wring your cussed green neck for you. I'll bet a hundred you're the feller that's been a-doin' all this devilment. Here you,—Susy—Airey,—have you seen Bill a-eatin' the ornyment?" Both the young ladies solemnly and truthfully declared ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... gits fer fergittin'," was his regretful comment. "I reckon, if so be I'd ever got onto thet-thar schooner with this-hyar damn' bag, she'd 'a' sunk, too. Or, leastways, they'd have chucked me overboard like Jonah, fer causin' the hull cussed trouble with this ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... the matter, and there he sees the ghost of the tom cat standing just in the same place; and it gave another miserable miaw! 'Why,' cried the captain (who had his grog on board, and was as brave as brass), 'it is the cussed cat himself. Stop a moment.' Down he goes to the cabin, reels up the hatchway again with his double-barrelled gun, and lets fly at it"—(here Dick lowered his voice to almost a whisper)—"the cat gave a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of Our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife. It ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he's sick o' any bizness that He went intu off his own free will and a Cord, but I rather callate he's middlin tired o' voluntearin By this Time. I bleeve u ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... galluses—I misdoubt ef there's anything in the world that'll run so smooth through and over and around and under so much cussed roughness as what true ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... that's nothin'; we boys always stan' by one another, an' I warn't goin' to leave him to be tormented any more by them cussed Rebs. He's been a slave once, though he don't look half so much like it as me, an' ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... "Cussed brute," said Mr. Smithers, outside the door. "He couldn't use wuss langwidge if he was a dook, dam 'im!—Yessir," he added, suddenly, as a roar ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... to butt in! Stung again! Like a small boy in love with teacher. And I thought I was so wise! Cussed out Mac—blamed Mac—no, damn all the fine words—cussed out Mac for being the village rumhound. Boozing is twice as sensible as me. See a girl, nice dress—start for Seattle! Two thousand miles away! Of course she bawled me out. She was dead ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe a-trottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife. It ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he's sick o' any bizness that he went intu off his own free will and a Cord, but I rather cal'late he's middlin tired o' voluntearin By this ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... replied the other, pointing to where the feathered end of an arrow could be seen protruding from his shirt; "and if yer cut off the tail of the cussed thing, I reckon you ken pull it slick through, as the head's comed out ahint me. But it's only a flesh wound, and ain't up to much, for it didn't ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... of things. They have that, and don't you think they hain't. But they've got the others, too. Animals like to eat and drink and play, don't they? You know that! And they understand when you're good to 'em and when you're cussed mean. You know that. And they know death when they see it, take it from me, because they're as sensitive to loss of motion, or breathing, or animal heat, as us humans—more so. They feel pain, for instance, more'n ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... 'n' fro, 'n' ginger cookies spillin' out all over the lot. He come back to the Maddoxes next morning' ('t wa'n't his day, but his hoss couldn't pull one way when Fiddy's ribbon was pullin' t'other); an' when he found out she 'd gone with Dixie, he cussed 'n' stomped 'n' took on like a loontic; an' when Mis' Maddox hinted she was ready to heal the wownds Fiddy 'd inflicted, he stomped 'n' cussed wuss 'n' ever, 'n' the neighbors say he called her a hombly old trollop, ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... meddler er not, I'm a cussed shore shot. An' I advise ye to give over on all this an' mind yore business. Ye'll have plenty to do by midnight, an' by that time all yore womern an' children, all yore old men an' all yore cowards'll be prayin' ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... a cussed business ony how. But thar's my hand, Mr. Kirke. Yer a gentleman, I swar, if ye hev come it over me, ha! ha! How slick you done it! I likes ye the better fur it; and if Jake Larkin kin ever do ye a good turn, he'll do it. I allers takes ter a man ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in stained glass and iron—ez pretty as fresh paint? or will you meander along to the bridal suite, and see the bamboo and silver dressing-room, and the white satin and crystal bed that cost fifteen thousand dollars as it stands. Or," he added, confidentially, "would you like to cut the whole cussed thing, and I'll get out Jim's 2.32 trotter and his spider-legged buggy and we'll take a spin over to the Springs afore dinner?" It was, however, more convenient to Carroll's purpose to conceal his familiarity ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... his chair. "To Serena!" he repeated. "Talk against Chapter to Serena! John, you don't know what you're sayin'. One time—just one—I did talk that way. I biled over and I damned that Chapter and the gang in it, cussed 'em in good plain United States. But I'll never do it ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... know how it is," said the Senator, "but I'm cussed if I feel as if this here country was ground into the dust. If it is, it is no bad thing to go through the mill. I don't much wonder that these Italians don't emigrate. If I owned a farm in this neighborhood I'd stand a good deal of squeezin' ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... must be shoving backwards, I thought, and that before long, or I'd go under, so I jerked the rein, but I'll be dog-goned, and it's true as there's meat running, Blue kept going forward. I laid back and cussed and kicked till I saw blood, certain. Then I put out my hand for my knife to kill the beast, but the 'Green River'[71] wouldn't come. I tell you some unvisible spirit had a paw there, and it's me that says it, 'bad medicine' ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... retorted, snapping her fingers. "And that's Hardman and his outfit ... I didn't hear all Dick said. When he talked loud he cussed. But I heard enough to tie up Panhandle Smith with this girl Lucy and the ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... Alf. "You're just doing this whole thing to be cussed. You know you've got me where I can't stir hand or foot. I was a fool ever to have got mixed up with such a white-livered, puling baby. I might have known you hadn't an ounce ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... "It's some cussed fool blunder of that confounded express company," burst out the unlucky purchaser. But there was no echo to his outburst. He looked around with a timid, tentative smile. But no ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... be so bold", said Tom, "I wouldn't go anyst the cussed court. It's nothin' at all, but the meanness and envy o' that rowdy priest over the river there. He's jest mad, cos the people come over here to git fodder instid o' goin' to his empty corncrib. They like to hear yer talk better ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... see about thirty years ago, I left the blue ridge with a party of my neighbors to come down yer in the Sciota country, to see it, and lay plans to drive the cussed red skins clean out of it. Well, the red skins appeared rather quiet, what few we fell in with, and monstrous civil. But cuss the sarpints, there's no more dependence to be put in 'em than the cantankerous wolves, and roast 'em, I always sets old kit talkin' Dutch to them varmints, the moment ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... say this now, I al'ays meant to drive my trade so as to make money on 't fust and foremost, as much as any man; but, then, trade an't everything, and money an't everything, 'cause we 's all got souls. I don't care, now, who hears me say it,—and I think a cussed sight on it,—so I may as well come out with it. I b'lieve in religion, and one of these days, when I've got matters tight and snug, I calculates to tend to my soul and them ar matters; and so what's the use of doin' any more wickedness than 's re'lly necessary?—it don't ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... "One of them cussed bums," he explained. "That's why they hurried on ahead of us, Alan. She says this Fourth of July celebration is going to mean a lot for ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... other fellers . . . a clever sort of chap . . . but he didn't know heverythink. And he 'ad one great pecooliarity: he was everlastingly afeard of getting old! He must ha' bin well over fifty, but he used ter get himself up outrageous young: and when I docked his shavingwater he cussed ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... go to say I'm the friend of oppression, But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth, Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression) To make cussed free with the rights o' the North," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— "Yes," sez Davis o' Miss., "The perfection o' bliss Is in skinnin' that same ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... close an' the licker bein' free I took to the licker, an' the licker took to me. I took to the licker, till I reeled an' I fell, An' the whole cussed drove ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... "It's a cussed shame, Venners," said Joe, when she was out. "Why can't yer humor the old gran a bit? She's the chicken-heartedest woman ever I knowed," explanatory to Miss Defourchet, "an' these ten years she's been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... sang—some of them parodies on Christian hymns which would have caused the orthodox and respectable to faint with horror. Here they rested up, and exchanged data on the progress of their fight, and argued over tactics, and cussed the Socialists and the other "politicians" and "labour-fakirs", and sang the praises of the "one big union", and the "mass strike", and "direct action" against the masters of industry. They told stories of their ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... chuckling; "and he was werry ill. You see, he come to the yard to work, after you'd begged him on, and he was drunk as a fiddler—not as ever I see a fiddler that way. And then, i'stead o' doing his work, he was nasty, and began cussing. He cussed everything, from the barrow and truck right up to your uncle, whose money he took, and then he began cussing o' you, Mas' Don; and I told him he ought to be ashamed of hisself for cussing the young gent as got him work; and no sooner had I said that than I found myself sitting in a puddle, ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... the stage who are short of purses have to content themselves with throwing about rolls of bank-notes and tipping servants with five-pound checks. Very stingy people on the stage have been known to be so cussed mean as to ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome

... little about cattle have written much of the meek and patient ox. Those who know them well tell us that the ox is the "most cussedest of all cussed" animals; a sneak, a bully, a coward, a thief, a shirk, a schemer; and when he is not in mischief he is thinking about it. The wickedest pack mule that ever bucked his burden is a pinfeathered turtle-dove compared with an average ox. There are some gentle ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Dorcas joyfully. "Thumped up the Jefe. First he cussed, then he calmed. That's his way. Be up pretty soon. Hold on! Wait ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... sir! A true pardnership is the sanctifiedest relation that grows, is, and has its beans, while any two folks of opposite sect can marry and peg the game out some way. Of course, all pardnerships ain't divine. To every one that's heaven borned there's a thousand made in ——. There goes them cussed dogs again!" ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... cussed at Grosvenor House and some steps in this direction may be expected if the demands of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various

... froze to death; for my heart was the only spot that felt warm, and it didn't beat more'n two licks a minit, only when I thought how she would be supprised in the mornin, and then it went in a canter. Bimeby the cussed old dog came up on the porch and begun to smell about the bag, and then he barked like he thought ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... General. "Burley has got to take it back an' apologize. He ain't fit to be an officer. He behaved himself like a bully. Any man who talks as he done orto be cussed an' Binkussed an' sent to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller



Words linked to "Cussed" :   obdurate, cussedness, unrepentant, obstinate, unregenerate, unregenerated



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