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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

fuss.

Excessive activity, worry, bother, or talk about something.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/fʌs/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/fʊs/Northern-England
  1. Excessive activity, worry, bother, or talk about something.

    countable · uncountable
    They made a big fuss about the wedding plans.
    What's all the fuss about?
  2. A complaint or noise; a scene.

    countable · uncountable
    If you make enough of a fuss about the problem, maybe they'll fix it for you.
  3. An exhibition of affection or admiration.

    countable · uncountable
    They made a great fuss over the new baby.
Where this word comes from

Of unknown origin. Perhaps from Danish fjas (“nonsense”), from Middle Low German (compare German faseln (“to maunder, talk nonsense”)). Compare also fouse (“to hasten, rush, tumble, disarrange”).

verb/fʌs/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/fʊs/Northern-England
  1. To be very worried or excited about something, often too much.

    intransitive
    His grandmother will never quit fussing over his vegetarianism.
  2. To fiddle; fidget; wiggle, or adjust

    intransitive
    Quit fussing with your hair. It looks fine.
  3. To disturb (a person)

    transitive
  4. To cry or be ill-humoured.

    US · especially · intransitive
  5. To show affection for, especially animals.

    intransitive
  6. To pet.

    transitive
    He fussed the cat.
Where this word comes from

Of unknown origin. Perhaps from Danish fjas (“nonsense”), from Middle Low German (compare German faseln (“to maunder, talk nonsense”)). Compare also fouse (“to hasten, rush, tumble, disarrange”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.