wuss

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   "Wuss" most certainly dates from the 1960s or 1970s.  I remember it in the late 1970s.

1960 & 1967, DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG by Wentworth & Flexner--No "wuss."  There's "wuzzy" (a girl), but it's not the same term.

1986, NEW DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG by Robert Chapman--"wussy or wuss n teenagers."

1989, THESAURUS OF AMERICAN SLANG by Robert Chapman--"wussy=wimp."

1995, DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG (3rd ed.) by Chapman--"wuss or wussy n 1960s teenagers A weak person (...) wussiness n by 1980s Weakness; ineffectuality."

   I don't know why Chapman added "1960s."  I know that Jon Lighter has gone through Lenny Bruce (1960s) and the National Lampoon (1970s).  "Wuss" would be in those places had it existed in the 1960s and 1970s.   Unfortunately, Lighter's RHHDAS stops at A-O.