Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An argument or a fight.
  • noun Trouble; bother.
  • intransitive verb To argue or fight.
  • intransitive verb To bother or harass.

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

  • noun An inconvenience caused by difficulties encountered trying to accomplish a task.
  • noun disorderly fighting; an angry dispute or disturbance.
  • intransitive verb to dispute or quarrel, often over petty disagreements.
  • intransitive verb To expend excessive time and energy trying to accomplish a task.
  • transitive verb to repeatedly annoy.

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

  • noun Trouble, bother, unwanted annoyances or problems.
  • noun A fight or argument.
  • noun An action which is not worth the difficulty involved.
  • verb To trouble, to bother, to annoy.
  • verb To pick a fight or start an argument.

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

  • noun disorderly fighting
  • verb annoy continually or chronically
  • noun an angry disturbance

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From American dialectal (Southeast) hassle, to pant (as from exertion), perhaps of imitative origin or akin to British dialectal hassle, to hack at, saw away at with a blunt blade.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • Wouldn't life be wonderful if hassle could be abolished?

    January 29, 2008

  • "Carrying dope is not advisable, and although searching you is illegal, few pigs can read the Constitution. If you are carrying when the patrol car pulls up, tell them you are Kanadian and hitching through Amerika. Highway patrols are very uptight about promoting incidents with foreigners. The foreign bit goes over especially well with small-town types, and is also amazingly good for avoiding hassles with greasers. If you can't hack this one, tell them you are a reporter for a newspaper writing a feature story on hitching around the country. This story has averted many a bust."

    - Abbie Hoffman, 'Steal This Book'.

    February 18, 2009

  • to be annoying

    May 16, 2009