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Fuss   /fəs/   Listen
Fuss

verb
(past & past part. fussed; pres. part. fussing)
1.
Worry unnecessarily or excessively.  Synonyms: fret, niggle.
2.
Care for like a mother.  Synonyms: mother, overprotect.



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"Fuss" Quotes from Famous Books



... made all that fuss," said I. "I only dropped in for a second or two. I wanted to ask for a drink and to show you a ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

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

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

... back,' said Sophy; 'there always was a stupid pain there; but grandmamma's Betty said I made a fuss, and that it was all laziness, and I would not let any one say so again, and I never told of it, and it went on till the other night I grew faint at church, and Mrs. Dusautoy put mamma in such a fright, that we all came here yesterday; and there came a doctor this morning, who ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... handsome as I expected to find her, after the fuss that George Braconberry made about her the other night at Wymar's," said Godfrey, suddenly pulling up his horse, as they rode home, and addressing his cousin. "Her figure is delightful, symmetry itself; but her face, she has scarcely one good feature in it. There is nothing gay or joyous in ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... AUNT,—I am going to pay you a visit without making much fuss about it. I shall be at Les Fresnes on the second of September, the day before the hunting season opens; I do not want to miss it, so that I may tease these gentlemen. You are very obliging, Aunt, and I would like you to allow ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... some wide air-holes in the comical roof, full seventy feet above. These lofty openings were capable of being so arranged, with reference to the wind, that the cooks are said to have been seldom troubled by the smoke; and here, no doubt, they were accustomed to roast oxen whole, with as little fuss and ado as a modern cook would roast a fowl. The inside of the tower is very dim and sombre (being nothing but rough stone walls, lighted only from the apertures above mentioned), and has still a pungent odor of smoke and soot, the reminiscence of the fires and feasts of generations that have ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ordinary women, but far beneath the dignity of a somewhat superior person like myself. To show how little it entered my thoughts I may add that, up to 17, I fancied a woman got a child by being kissed on the lips by a man. Hence all the fuss in novels about the kiss ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... answered heartily. "The girl has splendid possibilities. As you say, she only needs some sort of an outlet for her energy. She's a motherly, womanish child, too, as much so as Hope, in her way. She's got to have something to love, and to fuss over, and to fight for. I sometimes think that Will Farrington may supply a certain something ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... shouting. Captain Ross was entering the stockade in triumph with some old fire-arms and a splendid horse. They had been sticking up some three or four tents, called the Eureka government camp. Great Works! that could have been done long before, without so much fuss about it; and, forsooth, what a benefit to mankind in general, that Commissioner Amos, ever since, was so frightened as to get his large eyes involuntary squinting ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... person with a blush and a frown. "I know. Isn't it horrid? I'd lots rather wear girls' clothes, but you see these saved washing, and Lena, who took care of daddy and me, made a fuss about the washing almost every week, so daddy said boys' clothes were pleasanter than arguments. Aunt Kate," her voice was tragic, "I'm 'most eleven years old and I haven't ever had a white dress with a blue sash in all my life. I never even had ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... greatly, and Hart, whose boat was moored next to the doctor's overheard the man say to his companions, "Yes, it's all very well for you to laugh, but if you had a rebel fiend's bullet in your chest, and a foreign devil's fingers groping after it, you would make more fuss than ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

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

... him, or I should not be going to marry him," said Joyce with the dignity of eighteen. "But it's folly to make so much fuss about marriage, seeing that it's the most ordinary thing in life, like being ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... quite as the loss of a friend. Indeed, his anxiety is such, that his Roman dignity is almost ashamed of it. "I grieve", he says, "more than I ought for a mere slave". Just as one might now apologise for making too much fuss about a favourite dog; for the slave was looked upon in scarcely a higher light in civilised Rome. They spoke of him in the neuter gender, as a chattel; and it was gravely discussed, in case of danger ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... an island of 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 ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... about this stock-selling business," Hazel replied defensively. "And I can't see why you find it necessary to make a fuss. I don't see where the cheating and crookedness comes in. Everybody who buys stock gets their money's worth, don't they? But I don't care anything about your old mining deal. It's this fighting and ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... at a great stretching gallop, to where the cub was lying on the snow pawing at his nose. His mother, having turned him over two or three times as if he were a bag of wool, and finding nothing wrong, concluded that he had been stung by a gadfly, or that he was making a fuss about nothing, paying no attention to me whatever. Having finished her inspection, she cuffed him well for his pains, as a troublesome youngster, and disappeared over the tundra. I sat there for the matter of an hour, not daring to move lest the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... dear Rubek—is it worth while to make all this fuss and commotion about so simple ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen

... Miss Maxwell, it's this way," explained Mr. Baxter, turning to Esther. "Mrs. Charley Cropper's husband was Isaac's brother. They never got on well together, and when Charley died there was a tremendous fuss about the property. Isaac acted mean and scandalous clear through, and public opinion has been down on him ever since. But Mrs. Charley is a pretty smart woman, and he didn't get the better of her in everything. There ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... "What is all this fuss about?" he asked, with a fierce geniality. "I am the man you seek after, and why should I not be? Though why you should seek for me I fail to see. May not a man speak awhile in private to the lady of his honorable love, and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... to this hare-brained bridegroom, and the father of the girl would have stung her pink-and-white anatomy, but Patrick coolly explained that the matter could not be undone—they were duly married for better or for worse, and so the less fuss the better. Patrick loved his Doxey, and Doxey loved her Patrick, and together they made as precious a pair of beggars as ever played Gipsy music ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... talks of convenience and spoilt children—Sandbrook was quite right after all; I would not tell him how she answered me! Spoilt children to be sure they are, poor things, but she might recollect they have no mother—such a fuss as she used to make with poor Lucilla too. Poor Lucilla, she would never have believed that "dear Caroline" would have no better welcome for her little ones! Spoilt indeed! A precious deal pleasanter children they are than any of the lot at Castle ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... say 'afford,'" Nancy answered, "I mean that we do not live without a frightful amount of worry and fuss about money. To just keep out of debt, and make ends meet, is not my idea ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... you can talk scandal about," chuckled Bently, in reply to Herman's remark. "We had a devilishly pretty fuss in Nick Featherstone's studio the other day. Nick found his match in the ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... irritable and nervous, thinking Cara was going to hurt her beloved one, came forward and gave him a good bite, to which Cara responded in true camel fashion by groaning and grumbling and making as much fuss as ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... It is absolutely unmeaning to call buddhi non-intelligent. Again what is the good of all this fictitious fuss that the qualities of buddhi are reflected on puru@sa and then again on buddhi. Evidently in all our experience we find that the soul (atman) knows, feels and wills, and it is difficult to understand ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... abhorrence than an effeminate man, she would have taken Schehati's compound noun as a tribute to the fact that she was well-groomed and independent, knowing her own mind, and, when she started out to go to a place, reaching it in the shortest possible time, without fidget, fuss, or flurry. These three feminine attributes were held in scorn by Jane, who knew herself so deeply womanly that she could afford in minor ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... pocket, just as George Hendrick came up. Ye remember, perhaps, I was so confused-like I didn't know what I was doing. Maybe ye thought I was scared. Then, when we brought up the body, I went and put the chain under the big heap o' sea-weed. When all the fuss was made at the inquest, I was sorry I had hid the things, but I daren't tell then. And mind ye, Father Donnelly, I told no lie, for there was no watch, and the chain wasn't gold at all, but an old-fashioned silver affair. Even so it was a weight ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

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

... fuss about Easter being too early this year? It isn't half early enough. It ought to have come last Christmas, and Whitsuntide the same, and then we should have polished off three public holiday seasons—public nuisances, I call ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

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

... know about noble, I'm sure,' observes Mrs Pipchin; irascibly rubbing her nose. 'But I know this—that when people meet with trials, they must bear 'em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to bear myself, in my time! What a fuss there is! She's gone, and well got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think!' This hint of the Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when Mrs Pipchin rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr Towlinson, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... to the point of being afraid of murdering him, she would leave him without any fuss and live alone and mysterious somewhere in the South of France, or Italy, or Spain. Yes, Spain. There must be real Counts there and she would get ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... arrived for the girls to separate. The Scouts came up and carried Nannie off. She had become a great favorite. As Patty expressed it, Nannie was a comfortable visitor because she seemed to "belong." She made no fuss and adapted ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... going to fetch Gerty back and 'ave cheaper seats, but she 'ad gone inside with young Ted, and at last, arter making an awful fuss, he paid the rest o' the money and rushed in arter her, arf crazy at the idea o' ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs

... haven't they the imagination to be able to do the same thing with less fuss? Why not take their coats and collars off in the office and crawl round on the floor and growl at one another. It would be ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... the marquis hastened to beg me to stay at his home till I could continue my journey. I accepted the invitation with great pleasure, and with this my ill humour, which was really only the result of my desire to make a great fuss ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... that James's face was much redder than usual. It may have been partly that he had run upstairs very fast, for he is really very good-natured, but it looked as if he was rather in a fuss, too. ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... Will Ladislaw, in a contemptuous undertone, intended to dismiss the subject. He was conscious of being irritated by ridiculously small causes, which were half of his own creation. Why was he making any fuss about Mrs. Casaubon? And yet he felt as if something had happened to him with regard to her. There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... me into her office this morning and made a whole lot of fuss because I didn't have a written excuse for yesterday's absence," said Eleanor angrily. "When I told her that I stayed at home because I felt inclined to do so, she almost had a spasm, and gave me another lecture then and there, ending up by saying ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... 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 ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... rifle with him—a good one; and the horse and dog-cart, and a riding pony—more than a liberal return for payment of a three- thousand rupee bet. Pretty decent of Blaine on the whole, he thought. No fuss. No argument. Simply a short note of farewell, and a request that he would "find the horses a home and a use for the other things." Not bad. Not a ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... him making all that fuss over a couple o' pounds," said Mr. Chalk, looking round. "He's very free, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... Mr. Ruskin says of "Quatre Bras": "I never approached a picture with more iniquitous prejudice against it than I did Miss Thompson's; partly because I have always said that no woman could paint, and secondly, because I thought what the public made such a fuss about must be good for nothing. But it is Amazon's work, this, no doubt of it, and the first fine pre-raphaelite picture of battle we have had, profoundly interesting, and showing all manner of illustrative and realistic faculty. The sky is most tenderly ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... thought that a great deal too much fuss was being made about ink. The Board of Trade was, of course, an ass; that goes without saying (ca va sans dire); but it is childish of literary men to come there and pretend to be nonplussed. Let them rather show themselves superior to such trumpery legislation. As an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various

... have been better, she thought, if she had let Mrs. Nixey come home with her; but, oh, how tired she was of her aimless chatter, which seemed to din the ear and drive away all quiet thought from the heart. She had been very weary of all the fuss that had made a Babel of the little homestead since her father's death. But now she was absolutely alone, the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

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

... said his wife, with conviction; "he'll come straight here and try and make a fuss of me, same as he used to do when we was children and I'd got a ha'penny. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... for your guests in as good style as your means and the circumstances of the case will permit, and make no fuss about it. To be unnecessarily sparing shows meanness, and to be extravagantly profuse is absurd as well an ruinous. Probably your visitors know whether your income is large or small and if they do not they will soon learn, on that point, all that it is necessary ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... Arbuthnot, who now occupied there the important position of "Collector." Arbuthnot, like other people, had got older, but his character had not changed a tittle. Business-like and shrewd, yet he continued to be kindly, and would go out of his way to do a philanthropic action, and without fuss of parade. A friend describes him as "a man of the world, but quite untainted by it." He used to spend the winter in Bombay, and the summer in his charming bungalow at Bandora. In a previous chapter we referred to him as a Jehu. He now had a private coach and team—rather a wonder ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... they were certain to get loose and turn up among his fellow-passengers in car or diligence. To twine snakes around the necks and arms of young ladies playing quadrilles was another harmless joke. "Don't be afraid," he would say: "they won't hurt you. And do be a good girl, and don't make a fuss." He possessed an easy gift of adapting scientific theories and deductions to popular interest and comprehension, and his "Curiosities in Natural History" and other writings undoubtedly gave a strong impulse to the tastes of this generation, of which the many out-of-doors papers on birds, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... our government. Do not bark, say nothing to any one; go to Contenson's, and change your dress, and then go home. Katt will tell you that at a word from you your little Lydie went downstairs, and has not been seen since. If you make any fuss, if you take any steps, your daughter will begin where I tell you she will end—she is ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... so quick, I hardly knew whether I was standing on my 'cad or my heels. Both, I think. They was all on top o' me at once, and the next thing I can remember is sitting on the ground in my shirt-sleeves listening to the potman, who was making a fearful fuss because somebody 'ad bit his ear 'arf off. My coat was ripped up the back, and one of the draymen was holding up my arm and showing them all the mermaid, while the other struck matches so as ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... head-brakeman told it in the yards, Bill had to fuss with his wife for two days to get money for a box of cigars to stop ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

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

... I thought that perhaps you would see about them. After all that has passed, I could not have asked you, only that now, as you are engaged yourself, it is nearly the same as though you were married. I would ask Archibald, only then there would be a fuss between Archibald and Hugh; and somehow I look on you more as a ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

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

... you and your paper. You ought to be sued for libel. I say to you as I just now said to Ogden, that Jo Hamilton Daviess is making this fuss, not for furtherance of law and justice, but to ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... partic'lar strange people gives themselves sich airs, And troubles themselves so much 'bout other people's affairs; For my part, I can't guess, if I died this werry minute, Vot's the use o' this fuss—I can't see no ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... right or wrong,—'twas a hard case To weather such a trial; (Poor men, who lose a king's good grace!) He's straight saluted in the face By every splint and phial. He very wisely made no fuss; This hint he learnt ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... it had been quite spent," said Denham through his teeth, "Oh, what a fuss I'm making about such a trifle! Nothing worse than having a stone thrown ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... to smile, and say, "Then, Polly, I think I 'll ask you to go in and say a friendly word to my little girl. The sight of you will do her good; and you have just the right way of comforting people, without making a fuss." ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... could find out what all the fuss was about; but when Jeff Davis made a law to exempt every man from the army who owned fifteen niggers, then our blood riz right up, and we sez to our neighbors, 'This ere thing's a-getting to be a rich man's quarrel and a poor man's fight.' After all they dragged ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... no difficulty. I showed him the direction and then flung a bit of ice toward the desired goal. Without a second's hesitation he made a dash and reached the pan safely, as the tough layer of sea ice easily carried his weight. As he lay on the white surface looking like a round black fuss ball, my leaders could plainly see him. They now understood what I wanted and fought their way bravely toward the little retriever, carrying with them the line that gave me yet another chance for my life. The other dogs ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

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

... snow fairly easily. But in crossing a swollen mountain torrent Uhlig had the misfortune to fall into the water. By way of quieting my uneasiness about him, he at once exclaimed that this was a very good way of carrying out the water cure. He made no fuss about the drying of his clothes, but simply spread them out in the sun, and in the meanwhile calmly promenaded about in a state of nature in the open air, protesting that this novel form of exercise would do him good. We occupied the interval in discussing the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

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

... always sticking their nose in where they're not necessary," remarked the old man, not realising to whom he was speaking. "They fuss about everything you do or don't do, and yet a man can be shot down right under our very noses here and the ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... hands in the courtyard, you may be sure he has traded away one good horse for a better. He lives for me; his happiness is to see me elegant, in a perfectly appointed equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are all accomplished without fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twenty thousand francs at whist. 'What will Paz say?' thought I as I walked home. Paz paid them to me, not without a sigh; but he never reproached me, even by a look. But that sigh of his restrained me more than the remonstrances ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... just the wrong minute, just as it was separating. Suppose Frank hung round and hung around, the way he did often, and the sun got higher and the cream got too warm, and she'd have to put in ice, and go down cellar with it, and fuss over it all the rest of the day? She was furious and thumped the pillows hard, with her doubled-up fist. But if she went down, Frank'd hang around worse, and talk so foolish she'd want to slap him. He wa'n't more'n half-witted, sometimes, she thought. What was the ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... of whom you buy have big office expenses," I explained. "They make a lot of fuss, and you've got to pay for it. My principle is not to make fuss at the retailer's expense. Our office costs us very, very little. We are plain people. But that isn't all. Your big manufacturer pays for union labor, so he takes it out of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... whether there has been any cases of treachery among them. I don't know what started these old yarns. They were invented about Magersfontein time, probably to account for that awful mishap, and got into the local press here and made a lot of fuss, but we have heard nothing since on that score. There is such a lot of treachery put here (owing to the intermingling of English and Dutch in their two territories) that almost anything in that line seems ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... a fuss about family and noble connections betrays either that the fuss-maker is naturally a vulgar soul, or that it is deemed necessary, from an excess of weakness, to support a position of an equivocal nature. A gentleman never derogates from his true position, let him be placed in whatever ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... 'the offspring of the deceased marchionesses make a fuss. In fact marriage is always the signal for a ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... want a magnanimous nature;—one that takes slights and neglects in a large-minded way, and does not believe people meant them and, if they did, does not fret: one who is serene when little things go wrong, and does not fuss or worry: one who accepts generously as well as gives generously, and who is keenly alive to people's good points and good intentions. Little petty motives and small spites and jealousy die away in the light of a nature like that. It keeps the family ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... What a fuss over a little pain!" What many would say to a suffering friend when sound and well themselves. What Richmond Chartley was ready to say to herself as she paced the room, with one hand pressed to her face, where the agonising pain seemed to start as a centre, and then ramify ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... you to make a fuss about," he said gruffly. "I answered a plain question, that's all. I don't want to play at all. I should most likely lose, and you're much better without ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

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

... little party that returned to Brook Farm; and in the excitement of receiving the vials of nurse's wrath, and the fuss made over the poor little victims, Betty's adventures remained still ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... over, he runs home to tell his mammy; it's enough to bring fire and brimstone, and hail, and earthquakes on the whole country. A man must have a black skin or his sorrows can never reach the hearts of these gentlemen. They had better look about at home. There is wrong enough there to make a fuss about." ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... returned at once with two brushes, one a hair-brush, and one a clothes-brush. A curly poodle followed him in, and vigorously wagging its tail, it looked up inquisitively at the old man, the girl, and even Sanin, as though it wanted to know what was the meaning of all this fuss. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... little girl; and as for her being so pretty—well, it is not her fault, and I don't see why it should be her misfortune! I will look well after her when we are in London, and it will be for her good, I believe, to stay with us. What an absurd fuss to make ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... an arrangement?" inquired Garey, who spoke Spanish fluently. "We want nothing of you. What do you want from us, with all this infernal fuss?" ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

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

... be," said Mrs Morley; "and it's foolish of me to make such a fuss about nothing. There, I am better now. I was a bit flurried by the Doctor going, to be away all ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... is as clever as any rogue. He says the line for you to take is to call out louder than any one, and to send out an inspector, a special commissioner, to discover who is really guilty, rake up abuses, and make a fuss, in short; but if we stir up the struggle, who will stand ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... the truth-sense of their pupils. The professor, who was a delightful person, seemed surprised at the view I took, and gave me to understand, perhaps justly enough, that I ought not to make so much fuss about a trifle. No one, he said, expected that the boy either would or could do all that he undertook; but the world was full of compromises; and there was hardly any engagement which would bear being interpreted literally. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... 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 ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... don't look so horror-stricken. There probably never was a man yet who wouldn't have fled from the wedding part of his marriage if he could; and you know how Cyril hates fuss and feathers. The wonder to me is that he's stood it as long as he has. I thought I saw it coming, last night at the rehearsal—and now I know ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... never seen people who, in order to complain of the little fuss you make about them, parade before you the example of great men who esteem them? In answer I reply to them, "Show me the merit whereby you have charmed these persons, and I ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... monarchy—they become neither peers nor gentlemen, but stay exactly in their original places, with the disadvantage of finding their trade decidedly damaged by the change that has occurred in the national economy! Strange that the inhabitants of this world should make such a fuss about resisting tyranny and oppression, when each particular individual man, by custom and usage, tyrannizes over and oppresses his fellow-man to an extent that would be simply impossible to the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... bananas at 7 A.M., and afternoon tea at 5 P.M. Mr. Maxwell is most abstemious, and is energetically at work from an early hour in the morning. There is a perpetual coming and going of Malays, and an air of business without fuss. There is a Chinese "housemaid," who found a snake, four feet long, coiled up under my down quilt yesterday, and a Malay butler, but I have not seen any ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... neednt make such a fuss about it. Of course I'll pay it. I had no idea the poor fellow was hard up. I'm as shocked as any of you about it. [Putting his hand into his pocket] Here you are. [Finding his pocket empty] Oh, I say, I havnt any money on me just at present. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... understand—you needn't explain," she said at once. "Your husband has made a fuss, hasn't he? And this is good-bye. ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... pain of my royal displeasure, until I was ready to come out. They're awfully afraid of my royal displeasure, although not a bit afraid of me. Then I put the parchment in my pocket and escaped through the back door to my boat—and here I am. Oo, hoo-hoo, keek-eek! Imagine the fuss there would be in Gilgad if my subjects knew where I am this ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... "From the Dessau Archives; date, 21st September, 1734."] He has settled his affairs, Fassmann says, so far as possible; settled the order of his funeral, How he is to be buried, in the Garrison Church of Potsdam, without pomp or fuss, like a Prussian Soldier; and what regiment or regiments it is that are to do the triple volley over him, by way of finis and long farewell. His soul's interests too,—we need not doubt he is in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... because that was where she heard from him last. He was always promising to come home—in the letters. That used to make her so much better," she explained naively. "And sometimes she'd be able to go out in the yard and fuss with her flowers, after one like that. But he never came, and so she got the notion that he was wild and a spendthrift. I suppose he was, or he'd have written, or something. She had lots and lots of money and ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... We can't hope to slip away unnoticed, I grant you. But I do believe we can take 'em by surprise, and walk out before they can combine to stop us. We have the guns, and the hotties, which would be useful in breaking a path, and those two facts may even induce them to let us go without a fuss. Otherwise I should have proposed spiking the guns, which are in a state of rottenness calculated to do more harm to us than to the enemy, and leaving the hotties, taking the women behind us on our horses. But if by making an awe-inspiring ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... square foot— No meat, remember! Not an inch of meat, Nor drink, nor dram. You're not to trust to these. Wilt stand that bargain, Gabriel?"—"I accept." He struck it, quite o'erjoy'd. We sought the clerk, Sign'd—seal'd. He drew his purse. The clerk went on Figuring and figuring. "What a fuss you make! 'Tis plain," said he, "the sum is eighteen-pence"— "'Tis somewhat more, sir," said the civil clerk— And held out the account. "Two hundred round, And gallant payment over." The Miser's face Assumed the cast ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... good, Aunt Judy, do taste it!" exclaimed No. 8, jumping up in a great fuss, and holding up his little cup, full of a ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... points of view, the while Aunt Emmeline feverishly hacked at the hard sugar coating of the cake. For a young, comparatively young woman, to go from the liberty of her own home to share the stuffy, conventional, dull, proper, do-nothing-but-fuss-and-talk-for-ever-about-nothing life of two old ladies in a country town would obviously be a change for the worse; but for the aforesaid old ladies to have their trivial life enriched by the advent of ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... of its original splendour. Women, in particular, had helped to keep it alive, fanning its embers bravely. For many women, he found, dreamed his own dream, and dreamed it far more sweetly. They were closer to essential realities than men were. While men bothered with fuss and fury about empires, tariffs, street-cars, and marvellous engines for destroying one another, women, keeping close to the sources of life, knew, like children, more of its sweet, mysterious secrets—the things of value no one yet has ever put completely into words. He wondered, a little sadly, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... question demanded of us—'What is the most exquisite of sublunary pleasures?' we should reply, without hesitation, the making a fuss, or in the classical words of a western friend, the 'kicking up a bobbery.' Never was a 'bobbery' more delightful than that which we have just succeeded in 'kicking up' all around about Boston Common. We never saw the Frogpondians ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... and father must fuss, But I'll fake these songs to a sadder version When manhood steals the boys from us, And the Bottle-o ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice

... have been some difficulty in the assignment of parts, and it is easy to imagine that at first the players exercised their prerogative of growling—a prerogative not calculated to dispel the doubts fast assailing Addison as to the outcome of the performance. Nance Oldfield made no fuss at playing Marcia, Cato's daughter, for she was ever disposed to be tractable; but when it came to casting the noble Roman himself the trouble began. The story runs that the part was first offered to Cibber, and that he sensibly refused ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... there isn't much the matter, only a few bruises, only the pater makes such a fuss. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... wouldn't have been any harm in an old neighbor like you waking us up. Not a word of that—hold on! listen to me. It would be a pity if old friends like you and me, Peter, couldn't help one another to a trifling loan of provisions without making a fuss over it." And old John, taking up the scoop, went on filling the bag as if that were ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... building a castle of weed and sand. He will cover with flints its frowning face To keep the tide in its proper place, And the waves shall employ their utmost damp art In vain to abolish your moated rampart. And nobody's nurse shall make a fuss, As is far too often the case with us; Instead of the usual how-de-do She will give us praise when we get wet through; In fact she will smile and think it better When we get as wet as we like and wetter. As for eating too much, you can safely risk it With chocolate, lollipop, cake, and biscuit, ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... disconcerted. But, soon rallying, the latter started to his feet, and, having summoned back to its place his usual quantum of brass, demanded "the privilege of just looking at that rifle they were all making such a fuss about." It was accordingly handed to him; when, after noticing the size of the bore, which was a common one, and then glancing at some other rifles held in the hands of different spectators, he confidently requested that the first ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... remember what a silly fuss Ethel used to make over Jimmy, just before he went abroad, how they used to go cycling together. Of course, she's years older than he is, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... your voice may cheer the dauntless brave When I, your friend and countryman, am resting in the grave. Hush, soldiers, hush, no word of thanks, it is little I have done For the glory of the land we love, toward the setting sun. I have but one request to make: When all is over, then Let there be no fuss about me, bury ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... or if they did, my airs and harangue had put the thought to flight before it was delivered. Consequently, they were all transfixed with astonishment when the judges presented the target to them, and gravely observed, "It's only second best, after all the fuss." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... assumed that the vote of the two implied any marked personal sympathy with Luis de Leon. On the contrary: the difference between the majority and the minority was concerned solely with a question of procedure. The minority suggested that it would cause less fuss and less scandal to seize Luis de Leon, Grajal, and Martinez de Cantalapiedra, to place each of them in solitary confinement for a short while in a Valladolid monastery, and thence to remove them, without trial, to the secret prison of the ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... was roused by a bustle on deck, and going up to learn the cause was informed that a boat with the long looked-for pilot had put off from the shore; but, after all the fuss and bustle, it proved only a French fisherman, with a poor ragged lad, his assistant. The captain with very little difficulty persuaded Monsieur Paul Breton to pilot us as far as Green Island, a distance of some hundred miles higher up the ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

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

... to its quarters in those days with the quiet serenity of men on their daily routine. In a few minutes, without fuss or sound, the sailors were knotted round their guns, the marines were drawn up and leaning on their muskets, and the frigate's bowsprit pointed straight ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle



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



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