Adjacent Words

hassle definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an angry disturbance; "he didn't want to make a fuss"; "they had labor trouble"; "a spot of bother" [syn: fuss, trouble, bother, hassle]
2: disorderly fighting [syn: hassle, scuffle, tussle, dogfight, rough-and-tumble] v
1: annoy continually or chronically; "He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked"; "This man harasses his female co-workers" [syn: harass, hassle, harry, chivy, chivvy, chevy, chevvy, beset, plague, molest, provoke]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Date: 1945 1. a heated often protracted argument ; wrangle 2. a violent skirmish ; fight 3. a. a state of confusion ; turmoil b. an annoying or troublesome concern II. verb (hassled; hassling) Etymology: perhaps blend of harass and hustle Date: 1951 intransitive verb argue, fight <hassled with the umpire> transitive verb to annoy persistently or acutely ; harass <he gets hassled in the street because he dresses funny — William Kloman>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. colloq. --n. 1 a prolonged trouble or inconvenience. 2 an argument or involved struggle. --v. 1 tr. harass, annoy; cause trouble to. 2 intr. argue, quarrel. Etymology: 20th c.: orig. dial.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(hassles, hassling, hassled) 1. A hassle is a situation that is difficult and involves problems, effort, or arguments with people. (INFORMAL) I don't think it's worth the money or the hassle... ...a day spent travelling, with all the usual hassles at airport check-in. N-VAR 2. If someone hassles you, they cause problems for you, often by repeatedly telling you or asking you to do something, in an annoying way. (INFORMAL) Then my husband started hassling me... VERB: V n

Moby Thesaurus

ado, agonize, altercation, anarchy, apologetics, apologia, apology, argue, argufy, argument, argumentation, bandy words, barney, battle, beef, bicker, bickering, bother, brawl, broil, brouhaha, buffet, bug, bump heads, carp at, casuistry, cavil, chaos, choplogic, clamor, commotion, confusion, contend, contention, contest, controversy, cross swords, cut and thrust, defense, discept, disputation, dispute, disturbance, donnybrook, donnybrook fair, dustup, embroilment, endeavor, essay, fabulous formless darkness, fight, flyting, foofaraw, foul-up, fracas, free-for-all, fret at, fuss, fuss at, give and take, grunt and sweat, have it out, helter-skelter, henpeck, hubbub, huff and puff, hurly-burly, join issue, knock-down-and-drag-out, license, litigation, lock horns, logomachize, logomachy, make a row, melee, miff, misrule, mix-up, moot, morass, muddle, nag, nibble at, niggle, paper war, passage of arms, peck at, pell-mell, pester, pettifog, pick at, pick on, plead, polemic, polemicize, polemics, polemize, pother, quibble, racket, rampage, rhubarb, riot, rough-and-tumble, roughhouse, row, ruckus, ruction, rumpus, run-in, scramble, scrap, screw-up, scuffle, set-to, shindy, snafu, spar, squabble, stir, strive, striving, struggle, take sides, thrash out, to-do, trial, trouble, try, try conclusions, tumult, turmoil, tussle, undertaking, uproar, verbal engagement, war of words, whirl, wrangle, wrangling, wrestle, yap at