[Perh. echoic of the sound of something sputtering or bubbling, or expressive of the action of ‘puffing and blowing.’ Cf. also fuss, FUZZ (= fuzzball). The common view that the word is connected with FOUS a., ‘eager, ready,’ is baseless; the adj. is not found later than the 15th c., and has little affinity of sense with the sb.]
1. A bustle or commotion out of proportion to the occasion; a needless or excessive display of concern about anything; ostentatious or officious activity. Phrase, † to keep a fuss with = the later to make a fuss about.
1701. Farquhar, Sir H. Wildair, III. i. Ah! I hate these Congregation-women. There’s such a fuss and such a clutter about their Devotion.
1726. Swift, To a Lady, in Johnson, Eng. Poets, XLIII. 79. Come to use and application; Nor with senates keep a fuss.
c. 1730. Ld. Lansdowne, Wild Boar’s Def., Wks. 1732, I. 140. With your Humanity you keep a Fuss; But are in truth worse brutes than all of us.
1783. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, Jan. I felt so fagged with the preceding day’s fuss.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), XI. 271. You have both been making a great fuss about nothing.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxiii. 71. She got under weigh with very little fuss.
1850. Lowell, Lett. (1894), I. 175. I think we may be sure of this, that God never takes needless trouble. It is only foolish little men that are fond of mysteries and fusses.
1879. Dixon, Brit. Cyprus, vi. 58. They were to ask no leave, and make no fuss.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. ci. 424. There is a good deal of fuss about trotting-matches.
b. Fuss-and-feathers, bustle and display; hence fuss-and-featherdom.
1866. Temple Bar Mag., XVII. May, 198. Their [hen-women’s] fuss and featherdom have, however a different direction.
1891. Wolseley, in Pall Mall G., 23 Sept., 7/2. It was no fuss-and-feathers and gold-lace army.
2. A state of (more or less ludicrous) consternation or anxiety.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confed., IV. Wks. (Rtldg.), 431/1. Why, here’s your Master in a most violent Fuss, and no mortal Soul can tell for what.
1746. Hawley, in Albemarle, 50 Yrs. of my Life (1876), I. 114. I could not tell you … the fusse the battalions of Guards are in upon this sudden embarcation.
1813. Lady Burghersh, Lett. (1893), 74. Madame Legoux … had been in a fine fuss about us.
3. [f. the vb.] One who fusses.
1875. Howells, Foregone Concl., 98. I am a fuss, and I don’t deny it.
