Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Slang To infer or discover; figure out: "I think I'm good at sussing out what's going on” ( Ry Cooder).
- v. Slang To size up; study: "Suss out the designers in whom you are interested” ( Lucia van der Post).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- A variant of soss.
Wiktionary
- adj. UK, Australia, New Zealand, colloquial Suspicious.
- n. UK Suspicious behaviour; the act of loitering with intent.
- v. transitive, UK, obsolete To arrest for suspicious behaviour.
- v. transitive, UK, Australia, New Zealand To discover, infer or figure out.
- v. transitive, UK, New Zealand To study or size up, to check out (examine).
- n. UK Social nous.
Etymologies
- From suspect; originally suss out ("to investigate"). (Wiktionary)
- Probably short for suspect. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Sometimes it's even people you're working with - but you kind of suss out which ones are the baby demons.”
“It helps if you can "suss" out the academic culture and get a feel for what things are like in that person's office, etc.”
“What you see here are some fun drawings done in charcoal, which I love doing, that just kind of suss out the directions of the art.”
“The Portuguese are paying 1. 75% more than the Germans and indicates that the markets see them as less 'suss' to lend to nowadays.”
“Education and learning You know if someone's a bit 'suss', they're a bit suspicious, right? what about when you”
“Bonus points if you can suss out the rather strained relationship between the man pictured to the events on this episode.”
“During oral arguments, justices tried to suss out whether attorneys believed the court was ruling on behalf of all districts in the state—or just the 31 so-called former Abbott districts identified over the years as being poor, highly taxed, failing and/or serving a large population of students who need extra resources.”
The Wall Street Journal: Court Decision Could Upend N.J. Schools
“That information will help you suss out how capable she is of handling all the responsibilities on her plate.”
“Can they suss out a good song if their ears are bleeding?”
Kara DioGuardi on Platinum Hit's Bad Singing Problem, Plans for More Post-Idol TV
“So much is left to your imagination that a goodly portion of the drive home was spent in trying to suss out what kind of race the aliens were, and how they got into this situation in the first place.”
Spending Time in “District 9″ - Aaron’s review » Scene-Stealers
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘suss’.
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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Familiar
Just a list of words
fulminate, unctuous, malediction, lumpenproletariat, descry, surfeit, sententious, supernumerary, unabashed, picayune, obliterate, decry and 112 more...
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Surprising four-letter words
I imagine most of these will be Anglo-Saxon, not likely to crop up in the average day's conversation, and thus excellent for Scrabble. ("most" is too common, likewise "will" and even "crop", in an...
blet, quim, clit, buff, sire, wiki, blog, loam, waft, heft, mare, lilt and 68 more...
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Potpourri
eponymous, aa, pulchritude, gizmo, macabre, sui generis, solecism, solipsism, eldritch, samizdat, queue, obsequious and 469 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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words I love
uncouth, milquetoast, clusterfuck, salacious, usurp, harpoon, unsavoury, bulwark, legerdemain, qualm, quagmire, trumps and 209 more...
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Willieb's Words
pusillanimous, exigible, extraneous, contemptible, banal, generic, secular, canard, acerbic, erudite, versus, atheist and 192 more...
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Red Seas Under Red Skies
Words and phrase from Scott Lynch's book, Red Seas Under Red Skies.
legate, pugnacity, weevil, steady as a dry-d..., chit, sans, apprise, forfend, ken, expatriate, enclave, scrubs and 220 more...
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neologisms I like
nimrod, snarky, painbow, interrobang, hoser, kooky, craptastic, preggers, asshat, brainiac, shoegaze, skanker-sore and 146 more...
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jbd1's Words
mondegreen, discombobulate, ourobouros, unputdownable, gobbledygook, zephyr, obloquy, prestidigitation, glossolalia, dilapidated, revivification, truthiness and 92 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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the favourites
These are words that I like; either because they sound amazing, mean pretty things, seem particularly suited to their assigned definition, or just have good mouthfeel. The best ones embody some com...
tatterdemalion, alpenglow, dapple, defenestrate, wacky, lissom, lithe, whisper, madcap, magniloquent, whimsy, sallow and 208 more...
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tongue tippers
the ones that are just on the tip of the tongue, the ones that should be made celebrated members of my vocabulary, thank you
natant, prurient, antipodal, puerile, equipoise, choler, sui generis, exemplary, lodestar, rhetoric, bon mot, adjudicate and 91 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for suss.
cxkang Also made popular by the Radiohead song, "High and Dry"
not really used in my neighborhood Apr 22, 2009
oroboros "But the truth was out for all to see long before the big-name take-downs. For months sourcewatch.org has identified Martin Eisenstadt as a hoax. When Mr. Stein was the victim, he blogged that “there was enough info on the Web that I should have sussed this thing out.�?
--NY Times story about an internet hoax. Nov 16, 2008