Peevish

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Expressing fretfulness and discontent, or unjustifiable
        dissatisfaction; as, a peevish answer.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Silly; childish; trifling. [Obs.]
        [1913 Webster]
  
              To send such peevish tokens to a king. --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Querulous; petulant; cross; ill-tempered; testy;
          captious; discontented. See {Fretful}.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  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}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  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