a. [f. FUSS sb.2 + -Y1.]
1. Of persons, their habits and actions: Fond of fuss, moving and acting with fuss; habitually busy about trifles.
1831. T. Moore, Mem. (1854), VI. 201. Lucky for him that he is so little of an irritable or fussy nature.
1850. Fraser’s Mag., XLI. 163. She is fussy and fidgetty (if there be such words).
1854. Lowell, Cambridge 30 Y. Ago, Prose Wks. 1890, I. 46. Foreign travel may … make them, if not wiser, at any rate less fussy.
1866. Miss Braddon, Lady’s Mile, iii. 41. The fussy dowager … swooped down upon her nephew.
1877. Owen, Wellesley’s Desp., p. xlv. The fussy charlatanism … of ambitious sciolists.
1892. Jessopp, Stud. Recluse, Pref. (1893), 11. There were no schools then; no fussy visiting of the poor.
transf. 1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Europe, ix. (1894), 212. The butterfly … is much too fussy an insect to enjoy himself properly.
1895. Daily News, 5 July, 9/1. The fussy little Conservancy tug.
2. dial. and U.S. Of places: Full of bustle, bustling.
1848. A. B. Evans, Leicestersh. Words, etc., s.v. ‘The shops will be quite full and fussy.’
1853. Motley, Lett. to O. W. Holmes, in Corr. (1889), I. vi. 161. There is something rather sublime in thus floating on a single spar in the wide sea of a populous, busy, fuming, fussy, little world like this.
3. Of dress, etc.: Full of petty details. Also, in dressmaking language, without depreciatory implication; With many flounces, puffs, pleats, etc.
1858. J. G. Holland, Titcomb’s Lett., i. 92. Let every garment be well fitted and well put on—ugly in no point, fussy in no point, nor made of such noticeable material that you necessarily carry with you the consciousness that people around you are examining it.
1881. Queen, 1 Oct. Advt., The skirt … puffed more or less fussy, according to figure.
1895. Daily Chron., 15 Jan., 7/3. The latter [medal] had been withheld, the designs being fussy and of doubtful construction.
1896. Westm. Gaz., 7 May, 3/1. The fussy sunshade is much beflounced with lace-edged chiffon.
