You can think of it as: someone paying anxious attention to small details that most people would just let go. The energy is small, busy, and slightly too much — over a plate of food, over a cushion's position, over the exact way a knot is tied.
From the word’s history
fussy = fuss + -y; fuss is the noisy, anxious bother made over something small, and -y turns it into 'having that quality'.
fussy 就是 fuss(為小事張羅、大驚小怪的那股勁)加上形容詞字尾 -y,字面上是「帶著那股勁的」。知道這一層會很好記:所有用法都繞著 fuss 那個「小事被放大、周圍的人有點煩」的畫面轉,不是單純的「仔細」。
Wiktionary 詞源樹(English fuss + -y)
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Fussyname
- 1
A commune in Cher department, Centre-Val de Loire, France.
- 2
A surname from French.
- 3
A surname from German.
fussyadj/ˈfʌ.si/
- 1
Anxious or particular about petty details; hard to please.
- It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.
- 2
Having a tendency to fuss, cry, or be bad-tempered/ill-tempered (especially of babies).
- 3
Having much unnecessary detail or decoration.
- The internal decor of the SR-built Bulleid corridor stock was noticeably cleaner and less fussy than that of prewar coaches.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。