Suss

//sʌs// adj, name, noun, verb, slang

adj, name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
Alternative form of soss (“miry place”). alt-of, alternative
2
Suspicious behaviour; the act of loitering with intent. UK, uncountable
3
Social nous. UK, uncountable
"‘I′m surprised at you, Danny Weston! I thought you had a bit more suss than this. I never thought you were capable of something so ... silly.’"

Verb

1
To arrest for suspicious behaviour. UK, obsolete, transitive
2
To discover, infer or figure out. Australia, New-Zealand, UK, often, transitive
"Think we're standing for injustice / White gets two and black gets five years / Well it took me quite a while to suss this"
3
To study or size up, to check out (examine). Australia, New-Zealand, UK, transitive

Adjective

1
Suspicious; suspect. Australia, New-Zealand, UK, US, colloquial
"2001, Mo Hayder, The Treatment, 2008, Bantam, UK, page 244, ‘Yes – OK, OK. Try not to struggle, Tracey. It just makes you look even more suss.’"

Proper Noun

1
A surname

Synonyms

assoil beclart bedaub bedirty bedizen befile

Example

"2001, Mo Hayder, The Treatment, 2008, Bantam, UK, page 244, ‘Yes – OK, OK. Try not to struggle, Tracey. It just makes you look even more suss.’"

Etymology

Etymology 1

Clipping of suspicious and/or suspect (adjective). Compare sus.

Etymology 2

From suspect; originally suss out (“to discover or figure out”).

Related phrases

suss out check out figure out size up suss law

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.