▪ I. cuss, cusse
(y)
obs. forms of kiss.
▪ II. cuss, n. U.S. colloq. or slang.
(kʌs)
[In its origin a vulgar pronunciation or attenuation of curse; but in sense 2 often used without consciousness of the origin, and perhaps with the notion that it is short for customer.]
1. An execration, etc.; see curse n.
| 1848 Lowell Biglow P. ix, Them Rank infidels that go agin the Scriptur'l cus o' Shem. 1865 ‘Artemus Ward’ His Book 115 Not keering a tinker's cuss. |
2. Applied to persons, in the way of slight reproach or contempt, or merely humorously with no definite meaning; also to animals.
| 1775 Narraganset Hist. Reg. (1885) III. 263 A man that..was noted for a damn cuss. 1848 Lowell Biglow P. ii, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me. 1866 Ibid. 2nd Ser. Introd., Cuss, a sneaking, ill-natured fellow. 1883 P. Robinson in Harper's Mag. Oct. 706/2 The ‘horned toad’ is distinctly an ‘amoosin cuss’. 1883 Century Mag. XXVI. 285 The concern is run by a lot of cusses who have failed in various branches of literature themselves. |
3. Comb., as cuss-word, a profane expletive.
| 1872 ‘Mark Twain’ Innoc. at Home 20 (Farmer) He didn't give a continental for anybody. Beg your pardon, friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word. 1888 Detroit Free Press 15 Sept. (Farmer), He..never asked us for a chew of tobacco..or a free puff..and he didn't use cuss-words. |
▪ III. cuss, v. orig. U.S.
a. Vulgar pronunciation or attenuation of curse v.
| 1815 D. Humphreys Yankey in Eng. 104 Cuss, curse. 1841 Dickens Barn. Rudge xxxi. 116 Am I to thank thee, Fortun', or to cuss thee — which? 1841 Thackeray Gt. Hoggarty Diam. (1849) xi. 143 Have him in..for, cuss me, I like to see a rogue. 1848 Lowell Biglow P. iv, Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em. Ibid. ix, I wish I may be cust. 1849 Thackeray Pendennis I. xiii. 115 Dammin and cussin up stairs and down stairs. 1861 Sat. Rev. 7 Dec. 583 This is why people like Major Pendennis go cussing up stairs and down stairs, as his valet described that hero doing. |
b. With out. (See quot. 1881.)
| 1881 N.Y. Times 18 Dec. in N. & Q. (1882) 6th Ser. V. 65/1 Cuss out, to subdue by overwhelming severity of tongue. ‘He cussed that fellow out’, i.e., he annihilated him verbally. 1901 S. E. White Westerners xvi. 134 Clearly he could not ‘cuss out’ the delinquents as they deserved. |