cuss
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To use cursing, to use bad language, to speak profanely.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
chiefly uscolloquial
To use cursing, to use bad language, to speak profanely.
noun
chiefly uscolloquial
A curse.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To use cursing, to use bad language, to speak profanely.
Used this way, cuss is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.