Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Cursedness; perverseness; cantankerousness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Slang or Colloq., U. S. Disposition to willful wrongdoing; malignity; perversity; cantankerousness; obstinacy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun dated The state or quality of being cussed.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun meanspirited disagreeable contrariness

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Is it defects of administration, or a certain "cussedness" in the Scotch character, which resents any tightening of law?

    England's Effort: Letters to an American Friend 1916

  • The oppersite party is strong in cussedness; on our side, we know we're right, an 'we've made up our minds to die right on the spot, but never to yield.

    Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest Pauline Elizabeth 1902

  • Anton considers the death of Hackenschmidt to have been an act of 'cussedness' -- the result of a determination to do no work for the Expedition!!

    Scott's Last Expedition Volume I Robert Falcon Scott 1890

  • Fashion is the parent of both -- "cussedness" and consumption.

    Minnesota; Its Character and Climate Likewise Sketches of Other Resorts Favorable to Invalids; Together With Copious Notes on Health; Also Hints to Tourists and Emigrants. Ledyard Bill

  • _ This appears a startling statement and a sweeping; but, as a matter of fact, the Eastern girl is not left, like her Western sister, to flirt and frivol into middle age in single "cussedness," but almost invariably becomes a respectable married lady at ten or twelve, and drapes her lovely, but not over clean, head in the mantle of old sacking, which it is _de rigueur_ for matrons to adopt.

    A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil T. R. Swinburne

  • Miss Tempest, with a woman's daring, and the true spirit of "cussedness," took every risk, and, though even the enthusiastic and misinformed London papers have been obliged to avoid pet allusions to the "furore created in America" by the unfortunate

    Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 Various

  • This effect, rather subtle in itself, might be called the psychological factor of the situation, for there is not the slightest doubt that it produced a kind of cussedness in everyone, from the highest to the lowest, and sapped energy and made changes unwelcome.

    In Mesopotamia Maurice Nicoll 1918

  • The nutcrackers can scarcely be numbered among the common birds, but are sometimes seen in our hill stations, and, such is the "cussedness" of birds that if I omit to notice the nutcrackers several are certain to show themselves to many of those who read these lines.

    Birds of the Indian Hills Douglas Dewar 1916

  • Bill Thomson, whose reputation for pure, unadulterated "cussedness" was notorious in this semi-barbarous section, was his overseer and most intimate friend.

    Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest Pauline Elizabeth 1902

  • He had a supreme contempt for money, but he spoiled the best sides of his strange, eccentric character by enjoying a display of its worst facets with a "cussedness" as amusing as it was sometimes unpleasant.

    Cecil Rhodes Man and Empire-Maker Catherine Radziwill 1899

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  • 1UP: 'Yet the same elements that make SaGa games so horrifying to those whose baptism into RPG fandom was Final Fantasy are the same qualities that make the series stand out in an increasingly stagnant genre. SaGa draws equally from three diverse inspirations: other Japanese RPGs, Western role-playing concepts -- computer and otherwise -- and creator Akitoshi Kawazu's sheer cussedness. The SaGa games tend to be fairly open and flexible, and they also have a habit of not holding players by the hand: they're full of unique systems and rules that are best learned through experimentation.'

    January 15, 2009