"Cussed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what a relief it was to us when he left him, at last, and come for'ard. There was a sheep in the long-boat, and, as he was cruising about decks, he smelt it, and grabbed it, and was suckin' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she 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 ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... 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 with the Aladdin treasures, and to politely offer to follow his guide through the ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... 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 than they do him, and that's ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... airs and trying to rule us. It's human natur, that's all. We don't blame the niggers half so much as those who puts it in their heads to do so; but it's hard times we've had, we poor woods folks. They took our children for the cussed war, to fight fur niggers and rich people ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... their sense of the worth 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 we do, because, lackin' one of the five—or ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... in a great rage and looks forward to see what was 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 ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— 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
... institution from Scripture, chapter and verse. You may have noticed, perhaps, that such chaps are always mighty well posted up about the original designs of Providence; especially as to who's foreordained to be kept down. He says God cussed Ham, and the niggers are the descendants of Ham. I told him if there was an estate of Ham's left unsettled, I reckoned 't would puzzle the 'cutest lawyer to hunt up ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... heard pretty tall language on the Mississippi, but I never heard such volleys of cussing as came up from them boats; some of the men blazed away with thar guns, some shouted to others to row alongside, some who war hit yelled and cussed like fiends; and all this time we war lying behind the bags, ramming down fresh charges for the bare life. We gave 'em eight more shots before they could cast off the poles and come at us again. This time they came along more on the broadside, and five or six ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... an' me alone in the cabin. That kind o' 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 ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... like what the chap said when the donkey kicked en. ''Taint the stummick that I do vally,' he said, ''tis the cussed ongratefulness o' the jackass.'" ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... too. Look at him. If he'd stepped out of the picture frame of the Greek Gods he couldn't have a better window dressing. He's everything a woman ever dreamed of in a man. He's all this country demands in its battles. Then take a peek at me. You'll find a feller cussed to death with a figure that's an insult to a prime hog. What's inside don't figger a cent. The woman don't look beyond the face and figure, and the capacity to do. Maybe I can do all John Kars can do. But when it comes to face and figure, it's not a race. No, ma'am, it's a procession. And I'm ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... money, that belonged to his heirs, and belongs to 'em now. You've hung onto it, stole it, used it for yours. And Emily worked and scratched for a livin' and died poor. And Mary, she died, after bein' abused and deserted by that cussed husband of hers. And you thought you was safe, I cal'late. And then Bos'n turns up right in your own town, right acrost the road from you! By the big dipper! it's enough to make a feller believe that the Almighty does take a hand in straightenin' out ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had galloped down to town, bought a Colt's forty-five and a pint of whiskey, had 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. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... Margaret Augusta, while Juno advocated that of Rose Marie, inasmuch as their new clergyman would Frenchify the pronunciation so perfectly, rolling the "r," and placing so much accent on the last syllable. At this the Father Cameron swore as cussed nonsense—"better call it Jemima, a grand sight, than saddle it with such a silly name as Rose Mah-ree, with a roll to the 'r,'" and with another oath the disgusted old man departed, while Bell suggested that Katy might wish to have a voice ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... I just go round 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 ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... was 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 sure had one whizzer of a time. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... old backsliders in the crowd come right up and repented all over agin on the spot. The hull kit and biling of 'em got the power good and hard, like they does at camp meetings and revivals. But Hank, he only cussed. He was obstinate, Hank was, and his pride and dander had riz ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... three hundred per cent. on my money, so you go right along and when you come back we'll have a new shingle painted—'Brown & Talcott.' We aint anxious to lose yeh. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Brown and I'll be pretty lonesome for the first few weeks after you go away—and what I'll do about that cussed cow and kindling-wood I really don't know. Mrs. Brown suggested we'd better take in another homeless boy, and I guess that's what ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... gone and guv them three last fellers the wrong checks! The cussed little black things was all alike, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to New Orleans, and out to Lake Pontchartrain, to fish for market. A lot of cussed Chinese was in the bizness, and when they found COARSE fish in their nets, they'd kill 'em and heave 'em overboard. Now, no man's got a rite to waste anything, so we fishermen begun to pay sum attention to ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... breathless, and 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
... surrender an' we cussed ole Abraham Lincoln all ober de place. We wuz told de disadvantages of not havin' no edercation, but shucks, we doan need no book larnin' wid ole marster ter look ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... hard job sometimes, 'cause of the teaching was hard to understand. And then—then he'd just seem to be riled with anger and lay down the law of the Lord between cuss-words that all the slaves could understand. So finally I guess everybody was religionized even it was cussed into 'em ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... just drooled and drooled. I never seen him as bad as that before. Why, he twisted that left eye of his until it ought to have dropped out. I couldn't see it, but I could tell from the movements he made. And Joe just lay and cussed and cussed, and Charley cried and wished he was back ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... cussed mean I couldn't go along with ye," Lon said; "but I had to stay to hum. Did ye know that Mammy ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... 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 ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... made, or are making, more than grub wages? Say you're willing to share and share alike as you do—have you got enough for two? Aren't you actually living off each other? Aren't you grinding each other down, choking each other's struggles, as you sink together deeper and deeper in the mud of this cussed camp? And while you're doing this, aren't you, by your age and position here, holding out hopes to others that you ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... get some," he commented. "T'otherways it's him for an early wooden overcoat and a trip back home in the express-car. After which, let me tell you, Andy, that man Ford'll sift this cussed country through a flour-shaker but what he'll cinch the outfit that does it. You write that out ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... 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
... no bran-mash o' my own fixin'. I'm tellin' you my experiences, an' I've had ez heavy a load an' ez high a check's any horse here. I wuz born with a splint on my near fore ez big's a walnut, an' the cussed, three-cornered Hambletonian temper that sours up an' curdles daown ez you git older. I've favoured my splint; even little Rick he don't know what it's cost me to keep my end up sometimes; an' I've fit my ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... purring, baby-talking acquaintance gurgled: "How did the Ruthie bride spend her morning? Did she cook some little dainty for her husband? Nothing bourgeois, I'm sure!" in reply Ruth pleasantly observed: "Not a chance. The Ruthie bride cussed out the janitor for not shooting up a dainty cabbage on the dumb-waiter, and then counted up her husband's cigarette coupons and skipped right down to the premium parlors with 'em and got him a pair of pale-blue Boston garters and a cunning granite-ware stew-pan, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Half a dozen shooters was raised to fetch him down, but he tied a noose in the rope, put it round his neck, slipped it puty tight, and stood up on the bough and made 'em a speech. What he mostly said was as he hated 'em all. He cussed the man he shot, then he cussed the world, then he cussed hisself, and with a terr'ble oath he jumped off the bough, and swung back'ards and for'ards with ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... 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, ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... that we will never get to France! Isn't that the limit? But it's funny because, if we have rich men, I'd like to see them. Still, there are thirty thousand soldiers here, and in my neck of the woods such rumors are laughed and cussed at. We hear also that we're going to be ordered South. I wish that would come true. It's so cold and ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... 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
... say to himself, "I'll have er muscle on me like Jim, an' den I'll yank dis cussed ol' car right out in der middle of der crik," and he examined the small bunch on his arm critically a ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... and nonsense, Charley," he chuckled out; "you an' Hiram 'll be the death of me some day, with your yarns o' ghostesses an' such like. The skipper didn't see no sperrit as you thinks when he got mad this mornin'; it's all that cussed rum he took because he got round Cape Horn. Guess, as our mate here says, the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... boy! Don't you suppose I know? But now that you're down here at work, you've got to be even more patient. The desert is cussed mean. You and Dick have both got to contend with the old vixen for a long time before ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... with a sudden revulsion of feeling. "No, d——d me, not altogether. I thought there was something devilish queer in your voice. So you was the man, and I am the b'hoy. Oh, what a cussed beast I am to insult you! Give us your hand. I ask your pardon, sir. I ask your pardon. And," he added, looking fiercely round, "if there's a man here who crooks his thumb at ye, I swear I'll whip him within an inch of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... early settlement 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 ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... Young Pete. "I'm sick o' gettin' kicked and cussed every time I come near him. He licked me with a ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... sheep-dog devotion. Ramsdell, on my grilly days, would like nothing better than to stand and let me shy things at his head. It is beautiful; but it gets a trifle sultry. A little downright cussedness helps to clear the air occasionally; but cussed is the one thing Ramsdell isn't. I suppose it is because he is the product of the ages; it goes ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... course I want to go home. Thats all Ive wanted to do since November. At the same time I feel kind of sad like you do when your comin back to work from your summer vacashun. We been in the old army so long, an weve done the same things an cussed at them so many times, that you get sort of fond of the whole business just like you do any job that takes an awful long time an a lot of hard work to finish, but that youve finished. I guess you could get sentimental about piece work ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... told you all that I can tell About this sad affair, 'Bout Sallie marrying the butcher And the baby had red hair. But whether it was a boy or girl The letter never said, It only said its cussed hair Was inclined to ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... these cussed foreigners won't do," growled Wilder, and added something about being blown up before his prisoner, that brought a frown ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... in his temper," said the literal Steve. "I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... 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 rowing ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... 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 they go to the Duchess, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know it," 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 had a ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... 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 ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... "The little brute! Would it could be devoured by wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young ragamuffin!" ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 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 scarcely thought of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... spirited leader; "she's a fair horse ez horses go, but she's apt to feel her oats on a down grade, and takes a pow'ful deal o' soothin' and explanation afore she buckles down to her reg'lar work. Well, sir, I exhorted and labored in a Christian-like way with that mare to that extent that I'm cussed if that chap didn't want to get down afore ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... it's 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the night; the sergeant-major's horse had got loose from our lines and was missing. Down came that indignant officer and sent the whole troop out to find it. Months ago I should have gone and searched diligently, and then been cussed for not finding the animal. But now, what does the fully-fledged Imperial Yeoman do? Grumbling and scowling (you must always do this, as it shows how successful the powers have been in delegating a distasteful task to you, and pleases ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... 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 was always ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... yourself, not if they was feeding 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 ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... de good ol' 'Lishy, de bal'-headed preacher, an' made ugly mouths at him, an' jawed him, an' sassed him, an' all de time kep' sayin', 'G' 'long, you ol' bal'-head; g' 'long, you ol' bal'-head!' Den de good ol' 'Lishy looked back an' cussed 'em, when two she-bars heerd him an' come out uf de woods wid der cubs at der heels, an' walked in on der hin' legs 'mong dem bad town-boys, a scratchin' an' a clawin', a bitin' an' a gnawin', right an' lef', an' neber stoppin' till dey had tore ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... gentlemen officers,' the liquor still working up his pluck, 'we Southerners had to fit you. You sent old Brown down to run off our niggers, and then when we hung him, you come yourselves. Every cussed nigger—and I had forty-three in all—has left me and ran away but old George and two old wenches that can't run, and are good for nothin' but to chaw corndodgers.' The whiskey now worked fast on the old man, and making half a fist, he said, 'I reckon when hangin' day comes some Blue Bellies ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... and don't happen often anyhow—most being satisfied to work off their high spirits some other way. With them that's not white, things is different. When the Apache streak gets on top it sends 'em along quick into clear deviltry—the kind that makes you cussed just for the sake of cussedness and not caring a damn; and it's them that has give some parts of the Western Country—like it did New Mexico in the time I'm talking about, when they was ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... oughtn't to let her eyes smile that way at a pin-headed little dude like Dick Brown, anyway. And he—Chip—had given, her a letter postmarked blatantly: "Gilroy, Ohio, 10:30 P. M."—and she had been so taken up with those cussed musicians that she couldn't even thank him, and only just glanced at the letter before she stuck it inside her belt. Probably she wouldn't even read it till after the dance. He wondered if Dr. Cecil Granthum cared—oh, hell! Of COURSE he cared—that is, if he had any ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... see the lad who, by neglecting the machinery for a moment, had wrecked his life. "My boy," he said, "you played an ugly game. It was a big mistake. I haven't any grudge agen you, but be glad I'm not one that'd haunt you for your cussed foolishness. . . . There, now, I feel better; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... under my skin right. I'm feelin' queer, 'n' I gets to thinkin' I'd better beat it. 'Don't be a damn fool!' I says to myself. 'You ain't had nothin' to do with the cussed business 'n' you can't help it none. If you don't buy this colt somebody else will.' So I sets on the edge of the porch 'n' waits. It ain't so long till Miss Goodloe comes out again. I gets up 'n' takes ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... (discourteous) 895. moody,; spleenish[obs3], spleenly[obs3]; splenetic, cankered. cross, crossgrained[obs3]; perverse, wayward, humorsome[obs3]; restiff[obs3], restive; cantankerous, intractable, exceptious[obs3], sinistrous[obs3], deaf to reason, unaccommodating, rusty, froward; cussed [U. S.]. dogged &c. (stubborn) 606. grumpy, glum, grim, grum[obs3], morose, frumpish; in the sulks &c. n.; out of sorts; scowling, glowering, growling; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... boys returned, and 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
... 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 cal'late he's middlin tired o' Voluntearin By ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... 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 he'd do more'n speak. So ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... no more. Sad loss to Carthage! You see Bark Fetters—that's Bill's boy that's come home from the No'th from college—Bark Fetters come down here one day, an' went in the ho-tel, an' when Lee Dickson commenced to put on his big airs, Bark cussed 'im out, and Lee, who didn't know Bark from Adam, cussed 'im back, an' then Bark hauled off an' hit 'im. They had it hot an' heavy for a while. Lee had more strength, but Bark had more science, an' laid Lee out col'. Then Bark went home an' tol' the ole man, who had a mortgage ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... other for the loss of his job, and without a word having been spoken they went out on the dock and fought the bloodiest draw I have ever seen on the San Francisco waterfront. After they had been patched up at the Harbor Hospital, both came and cussed me and told me I was an ingrate, so I hired them both back again, put them in different ships, slipped each of them a good, cheerful Russian Finn, and saved funeral expenses. That's what I got, Matt, for not asking those two what kind ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Feyther durn't tell mother for his life as he helped me; her durn't tell him as her helped me. So they mek up their minds to gi'e me a pound a week betwigst the two on 'em, and that's how it comes about with these here cussed reconcilings, as I'm done out o' fifty per cent, o' my income. Look here, Mr. Gold, don't you goo about reconcilin' ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... said, when he had complied with the request, "you didn't think dat dis chile was going to stop prisoner with dose French chaps; Sam not such a fool as dat, nohow. When dat cussed mule—I tell you fair, Massa Tom, dis chile conclude dat riding not such a berry easy ting after all—when dat cussed mule ran into French camp, de soldiers dey catch him, and dey take Sam off, and den dey jabber and laugh for all de world like great lots of monkeys. Well, for some ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... me alone. It's bad enough to sit here in these cussed stocks, till every bone in my body aches, and have the children stare at me, without you coming over to poke fun at me. ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... 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, an' fired the bread loaves all over ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wrong; I 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' it ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... tent stake, I addrest them as 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 with your pestifrous ideas! You wimin folks go back to your lawful husbands ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... with half-closed, measuring eyes. "Yes, sir, I just plumb spoiled one perfectly good Concord coach, and would have been playing leading corpse at a funeral, believe me, if I hadn't strapped myself to the seat for that drive off the grade. As it was, I hung head down and cussed till one of the boys cut me loose. Where did you ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... do it." A sudden deep note of savagery sounded in Warden's voice. "Not to save your own skin, Mr. Fletcher Hill, but for the sake of—something more valuable than that—something more precious even than your cussed pride. You'll do it for the sake of the girl you're going to marry. And ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... saw nothing, not a thing, boys, save two picters and a few old sticks of furniture. An' seeing that things was O.K., I shet the door, but doggone it! the cussed key wouldn't lock it. Nex' morning the Baron found it open, and, Jeeroosalem! I never seen a man git ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... he 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
... voice and she spoke right snappy. When she let me in she said, 'sit down. You lak whisky?' I said, well, I take a little dram sometimes. 'Well, here take some of this', she said. I poured a little bit and drank it kinda lak I wuz afraid. She cussed and said 'I ain't go conjure you. Drink it.' She got the cards and told me to cut 'em, so I did. Looking at the cards, she said: 'You like ter wait too long; they got him marching to the cemetery. The poor thing! I'll fix those devils. (A profane word ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... 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' I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... 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 ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... of doing unusual things. And they are a religious people, especially those who have spent their lives in mountain coves. There's Sergeant York. He admits he sowed his wild oats in his youth. "We drinked and gambled," he says, "and we cussed and fit." But when this giant mountaineer's eyes were opened to the evil of his ways, after the death of his father, Alvin C. York forsook his old habits once and for all. When the World War came he declared himself a conscientious objector. His church—the Church of Christ in Christian ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... got the money and we went up town, we met the cussed decoy again, and we were fools enough to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... you mean by honesty. You was clever enough to take care as you had really got it. Now about this Polyeuka business, I'll tell you how it is. I and Jack Adamson and another,'—as he alluded to the 'other' he winked,—'we believed in Polyeuka; we did. D——- the cussed hole! Well;—when you was gone we thought we'd try it. It was not easy to get the money as you wanted, but we got it. One of the banks down at Sydney went shares, but took all the plant as security. Then the cussed place ran out the moment the money was paid. It was just as though fortin had ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... owin' to some whites as crossed this way last year. Thar war a scrimmage atween them and the redskins, in the which some squaws got kilt—I mout say murdered. Thar war some Mexikins along wi' the whites, an' it war them that did it. An' now we've got to pay for their cussed crooked conduk." ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... 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' fer Banion an' his men to come. That there includes you ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... 'Look out, Glenn. He packs a gun!'—Ruff got up mad clear through I reckon. Then they mixed it. Ruff got in some swings, but he couldn't reach Glenn's face. An' Glenn batted him right an' left, every time in his ugly mug. Ruff got all bloody an' he cussed something awful. Glenn beat him against the fence an' then we all saw Ruff reach for a gun or knife. All the men yelled. An' shore I screamed. But Glenn saw as much as we saw. He got fiercer. He beat Ruff down to his knees an' swung on him hard. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... 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
... fields called "The Serpentine," somewhere near Dunedin. This old fellow and I cotton together very well. He is worth a dozen of the other two Germans. He had been all through the American war under Grant, and spins some long yarns about the Northerners and the "cussed rebs." ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... I've bin riding round and collecting on 'em for this mad party of Younker's, who went off without any precaution; and I'm now on my way to deliver 'em, that they may start instanter arter the cussed red skins, and punish 'em according ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... said Dorcas joyfully. "Thumped up the Jefe. First he cussed, then he calmed. That's his way. Be up pretty soon. Hold ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... Omaha, I turned him down flat. Might of done it, you know, for the express was four hours behind schedule; but I was just too ornery. I let on I hadn't got the order, made 'em back their old special on a siding, and held 'em there all one blisterin' hot afternoon, while they come in by turns and cussed me. But your Mr. Gordon was the only one that talked straight to the point. 'Let us through, or I'll see that you're fired before morning!' says he, and fired I was. The night freight dropped a new agent, and by breakfast time I ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... bound to hev a game, I cal-kilate they'd like to patronize his bank. Thet's made the old crowd mighty mad an' they're a-talkin' about puttin' up a job of cheatin' on him an' then stringin' him up. Besides, I kind o' think there's some cussed jealousy on another lay as comes in. Yer see the young feller—Cyrus Foster's his name—is sweet on thet gal of Jeff Johnson's. Jeff wuz to Laramie before he come here, an' Foster knowed Sally up thar. I allow he moved here to see ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... Drew all tied up wid de rope an gagged so he couldn' holler; he had him th'owed over his shoulder like a sack of meal. He brung him in de cabin an' laid him on de floor, den he tole him if he wouldn' sell Lissa dat he wouldn' hurt him. But Marse Drew shook his head an' cussed in his th'oat. Den Cleve took off de gag, but befo' de white man could holler out, Cleve stuffed de spout of a funnel in his big mouf way down his th'oat, holdin' down his tongue. He ax him one ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... on us," McHale admitted. "For the powder we burned we sure ought to have a scalp or two to show. Still, moonlight shootin' is chance shootin', and when a cussed mean cayuse is sashayin' round if a man hits anything but ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm |
