Meaning

4 senses
  1. (US, colloquial)A curse.

  2. (US, colloquial)A curse word.

  3. (US, colloquial)Fellow, person.

    He's an abrupt-sounding cuss, but good-hearted too.

    a persistently annoying person

  4. (US, colloquial, dated)A fellow, person.

Examples

50 sentences
  1. I've never heard Tom cuss.

    Я ніколи не чув, щоб Том лаявся. — deniko

  2. Tom doesn't cuss, drink or smoke.

    ruТом не пьёт, не курит и не матерится. — Wezel

  3. A real man doesn't need to cuss.

  4. Tom heard screaming and cussing outside his window.

  5. Tom was cussing at Mary when she slapped him.

Origin

An American English variant of curse; for a similar phonetic development, compare ass (“bu

An American English variant of curse; for a similar phonetic development, compare ass (“buttocks”), from arse, in which the r was originally pronounced (as in curse). Etymology 1, noun sense 3 (“fellow, person”) is from the replacement of a derogatory or affectionate curse word like bitch in son of a bitch with the word cuss, after etymology 1, noun sense 2 (“curse word”).

Clipping of customer.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: cusses
Singularcuss
Pluralcusses

regular

Synonyms

17 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

5 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
cuss — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto