[see next vb.]
1. † a. Excitement proceeding from intoxication (obs.). b. A confused or agitated state of mind; a flurry, flutter.
1710. Tatler, No. 252, ¶ 4. When Caska adds to his natural Impudence the Fluster of a Bottle, that which Fools called Fire when he was sober, all Men adhor as Outrage when he is drunk.
1728. Vanbr. & Cib., Prov. Husb., III. i. He has been in such a Fluster here.
1848. Lowell, Biglow P., Poems, 1890, II. 85.
| In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster, | |
| An’ reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster. |
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., viii. 209–10. All this fluster may have arisen from a horror of the steward, in the idea that his darling formula of ‘decorum’ had been violated in the page’s having made an extempore love-declaration to the Lady Olivia.
† 2. ? Pomp, splendor. Cf. FLUSTER v. 3 c, d. Obs.
1676. Marvell, Mr. Smirke, Wks. (Grosart), IV. 12. His wit consisting wholly in his dresse, he would (and ’twas his concernment to) have it all about him: as to the end that being huff’d up in all his ecclesiastical fluster, he might appear more formidable, and in the pride of his heart and habit out-boniface an Humble Moderator.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1737), VI. vi. 235. Let no present fluster of fortune, or flow of riches, either transport the man himself with confidence, or the fools about him with admiration, till we see that it makes him better and wiser than he was before.
