Adjacent Words

Peevish definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PEE'VISH, a.
1. Fretful; petulant; apt to mutter and complain; easily vexed or fretted; querulous; hard to please.
She is peevish, sullen, froward.
2. Expressing discontent and fretfulness.
I will not presume
To send such peevish tokens to a king.
3. Silly; childish.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: easily irritated or annoyed; "an incorrigibly fractious young man"; "not the least nettlesome of his countrymen" [syn: cranky, fractious, irritable, nettlesome, peevish, peckish, pettish, petulant, scratchy, testy, tetchy, techy]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English pevish spiteful Date: circa 1530 1. querulous in temperament or mood ; fretful 2. perversely obstinate <a peevish child> 3. marked by ill temper • peevishly adverb • peevishness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. querulous; irritable. Derivatives: peevishly adv. peevishness n. Etymology: ME, = foolish, mad, spiteful, etc., of unkn. orig.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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. She is peevish, sullen, froward. --Shak. 2. Expressing fretfulness and discontent, or unjustifiable dissatisfaction; as, a peevish answer. 3. Silly; childish; trifling. [Obs.] To send such peevish tokens to a king. --Shak. Syn: Querulous; petulant; cross; ill-tempered; testy; captious; discontented. See Fretful.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Someone who is peevish is bad-tempered. Aubrey had slept little and that always made him peevish... She glared down at me with a peevish expression on her face. ADJ • peevishly Brian sighed peevishly... She had grown ever more peevishly dependent on him. ADV: ADV with v, ADV adj • peevishness He complained with characteristic peevishness.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Fretful, petulant, querulous, irritable, waspish, snappish, pettish, captious, cross, crusty, snarling, testy, churlish, crabbed, acrimonious, spleeny, ill-natured, ill-tempered. 2. Discontented, fretful, captious. 3. Self-willed, stubborn, obstinate, headstrong, froward. 4. Silly, childish, thoughtless, trifling.

Moby Thesaurus

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