Peevish \Pee"vish\, a. [OE. pevische; of uncertain origin, perh.
from a word imitative of the noise made by fretful children +
-ish.]
1. Habitually fretful; easily vexed or fretted; hard to
please; apt to complain; querulous; petulant. "Her peevish
babe." --Wordsworth.
[1913 Webster]
She is peevish, sullen, froward. --Shak.
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2. Expressing fretfulness and discontent, or unjustifiable
dissatisfaction; as, a peevish answer.
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3. Silly; childish; trifling. [Obs.]
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To send such peevish tokens to a king. --Shak.
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Syn: Querulous; petulant; cross; ill-tempered; testy;
captious; discontented. See Fretful.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
peevish
adj : easily irritated or annoyed; "an incorrigibly fractious
young man"; "not the least nettlesome of his
countrymen" [syn: cranky, fractious, irritable, nettlesome,
peckish, pettish, petulant, testy, tetchy, techy]
WordNet (r) 2.0
92 Moby Thesaurus words for "peevish":
Jeremianic, acrimonious, bad-tempered, beefing, bellyaching,
bilious, bitching, cantankerous, captious, carping, catty,
caviling, cavilling, churlish, complaining, complaintful, crabbed,
crabbing, crabby, cranky, critical, croaking, cross, crotchety,
crusty, disappointed, discontented, disgruntled, displeased,
dissatisfied, envious, faultfinding, fractious, fretful, griping,
grouchy, grousing, growling, grumbling, grumpish, grumpy, howling,
huffy, ill-humored, ill-natured, ill-tempered, irritable,
lamentive, malcontent, malcontented, moanful, mournful, murmuring,
muttering, nagging, naggy, out of humor, pettish, petulant,
plaintive, plangent, puling, querulant, querulous, rebellious,
resentful, restive, restless, short-tempered, shrewish, snappish,
sorrowful, splenetic, sulky, testy, tetchy, touchy, ululant,
unaccepting, unaccommodating, uneasy, unfulfilled, ungratified,
unhappy, unsatisfied, vixenish, vixenly, wailful, waspish,
whimpering, whining, whiny
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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