Suss
/sʌs/noun
British informal: to figure out, investigate, or suspect something; also used for someone or something that seems suspicious.
Did you know?The slang sense of suss is a clipped form of suspicious/suspect, and in British English it became especially common in police and street speech before exploding online as a vibe-check word.
Etymological Timeline
Latin
Lat
suspicere
“to look up at, inspect, mistrust”
Late Latin
Lat
suspicionem
“suspicion, mistrust”
Old French
OF
suspicier
“to suspect”
Middle English
ME
suspicion
“distrust, mistrust”
20th Century
English
suss
“to figure out; to suspect; suspicious”
Explore more surprising origins