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Cussedness   Listen
noun
Cussedness  n.  Disposition to willful wrongdoing; malignity; perversity; cantankerousness; obstinacy. (Slang or Colloq., U. S.) "In her opinion it was all pure "cussedness."" "Disputatiousness and perversity (what the Americans call "cussedness")."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cussedness" Quotes from Famous Books



... I'm glad she doesn't. I want her to forget. She's very happy with us—but she's far from perfect." "To what form of cussedness does she tend, Lyn? With me she's as lamblike as ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... name Lamar," Kennedy explained. Then an expression of gratification crept into his face. "Miss Lamar was 'up- stage'?" he mused. "That's a theatrical word for cussedness, isn't it?" ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... I'm certain he tried and tried again. After mother died he left whisky alone, though he still had it in the house. He took to reading philosophy instead. You see, he was not like you. There was a hardness, a bravery in him that you haven't got. You have cussedness instead and cussedness is a thing you can never be sure of. You see," she went on, flushing a little, and suddenly tossing her head proudly, "you don't understand this, and it may sound most appalling snobbishness to you. But my father's people have always been rulers—little kings—fighters, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... one day and tackled Jim fer a swap; and about that time Jim he'd got hold of a critter that had more cussedness in him to the squar inch than any critter we'd ever sot eyes on, 'cept a cirkus mule ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart

... get away from it," he heard Crane declare: "there's some sort of funny business going on, or liable to go on, aboard this ship. She wasn't held up for a solid week out of pure cussedness. Neither did they come aboard to-night to give us another once-over through ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... story of another gypsy, who was no saint, and which I repeat merely to show how extremes meet. It was that this gypsy, who was inspired with anything but the inner glowing glory of God, but who was, on the contrary, cram full of pure cussedness, being warmed by the same,—and the devil,—when chased by the constable, took refuge in a river full of freezing slush and broken ice, where he stood up to his neck and defied capture; for he verily cared no more for it than did Saint Peter of Alcantara, who was both ice and fire proof. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... you'd call a real vicious horse, but a dangerous one. Full of vinegar and all-round cussedness, but without malice. Just as soon kill you as not, but in a playful sort of way, you understand, without meaning to at all. Personally, I wouldn't think of riding him. But he's a stayer. Look at them ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... and I often thought that the atonement would have to be very broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man that would I write such a book for boys. Then I would look to see how the sun was getting on, and sometimes I thought it had stuck from pure cussedness. Then I would go back and try Jenkyn's again. Well, but it had to go down, and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our hats and we would give three cheers ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... has no strength for anything else; they scold him for being awkward and say it is due to carelessness and a slip-shod mind, because they do not know that the muscles sometimes grow faster than the bones, making accurate co-ordination a physical impossibility; in a word, to general, all round cussedness they charge behavior that should be referred to high blood pressure, aching bones, the knitting together by fiber growth of the various brain centers, and finally, to youthful enthusiasm, all of which are perfectly normal signs of developing youth. They do it because they do not know any better. ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... village which had been destroyed, and another where a number of houses had been burned. A nice-looking young chap told us that there had been a fight there the day before and that the Germans had set fire to the place as they retreated—just from cussedness, so far as he could see. There, and at another place along the road, peasants told us that they had been made to march in front of the German troops when they marched against the Belgians. I don't like to believe that there is any truth in that story but ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... liberality very frequently at one glance, and in any case form an accurate opinion of him by the way he orders his menu. We know whether we have to do with a gentleman or a cad, and whether his subsequent parsimoniousness is caused by cussedness or simply ignorance of the customs of such establishments, and we treat him in consequence. It is pitiful sometimes to see all the ruses employed by well-meaning people, unwilling to be thought unaccustomed to the life of a large restaurant, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... its normal functions, for no cause that a hot and oily human being could perceive other than the occasional "cussedness" which inanimate objects can be capable of; while surveying it wrathfully, he awoke to the racket ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... horribly hungry. There was something about the war that made me ravenous, and the less chance of food the worse I felt. If I had been in London with twenty restaurants open to me, I should as likely as not have gone off my feed. That was the cussedness of my stomach. I had still a little chocolate left, and I ate the fisherman's buttered scones for luncheon, but long before the evening my thoughts were dwelling ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan



Words linked to "Cussedness" :   contrariness, perversity, perverseness, cussed



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