A fellow. It will be noticed (1853–7) that the Mormon speakers used the word curse.
1848. The kinky-headed cus looked at me sideways, and rolled the whites of his eyes at me like he was gwine to have a fit of hidryfoby.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 146 (Phila.).
1848.
| The everlastin’ cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me | |
| An’ made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in’my. | |
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ 1st S., No. 2. |
1853. We have known Gladden Bishop for more than twenty years, and know him to be a poor, dirty curse.—Brigham Young, March 27: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 83.
1853. You say you are going to obliterate the Latter Day Saints, and wipe them from the earth; why don’t you do it, you poor miserable curses?—Id., July 31, i. 169.
1856. We would walk right into you and completely use up every curse who will not do right.—J. M. Grant at the Mormon Tabernacle, March 2, id., iii. 236.
1856. The last is a poor cuss, who stole a jog of whiskey. The article is so plenty and cheap that it may be had, by asking, anywhere, and stealing it is the meanest kind of offence, and deserves the severest punishment that the law will permit.—Knickerbocker Magazine, xlvii. 504 (May).
1857. There is a poor curse who has written the bigger part of those lies which have been printed in the States.—H. C. Kimball, July 12: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ v. 32.
1857. He [Horace Greeley] is one of the prominent newspaper editors in the Eastern country, and he is a poor, miserable curse.—John Taylor at the Bowery, Salt Lake City, Aug. 9: id., v. 119.
1857. That poor ornary cuss of a red-headed, cross-eyed grocery-keeper, that you are trying to force her to marry!—Knick. Mag., l. 442 (Nov.).
1857. I can’t say for sarting what was the matter with the cuss.—Id., l. 457.
1858. I told the feller behind the counter that some cuss was in my room.—Oregon Weekly Times, Oct. 16.
1861. This is the kind of country we’ll catch the Yankees in, if they come to invade us. They’ll have some pretty tall swimming, and get knocked on the head, if ever they gets to land. I wish there was ten thousand of the cusses in it this minute.—W. H. Russell, ‘My Diary, North and South,’ April 16.
1862.
| With the one cuss I can’t lay on the shelf, | |
| The crook’dest stick in all the heap,—Myself. | |
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ 2nd S., No. 6. |
1862. See Appendix XIV.
1863. Some facetious cuss amused himself night before last by making a general exchange of articles of moveable property.—Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Feb. 12.
1867. General Gibbs was nearly numb while marching beside me to-day, and when he found I was perfectly comfortable, exclaimed, ‘Well, you are a warm-blooded cuss.’—Letter of General Custer, April 3: Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ p. 524 (1888).
1869. These Mexicans [she said] were dead-alive sort of cusses. The men had no grit, and the women no jingle.—J. Ross Browne, ‘Adventures in the Apache Country,’ p. 182 (N.Y.).
1873. The impecunious cuss knows there is five dollars waiting for him there, when he brings letters from me, and he wants to get there and have a time with the boys.—J. H. Beadle, ‘The Undeveloped West,’ p. 573 (Phila., &c.).
