Petulant

3 definitions found

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

  Petulant \Pet"u*lant\, a. [L. petulans, -antis, prop., making
     slight attacks upon, from a lost dim. of petere to fall upon,
     to attack: cf. F. p['e]tulant. See {Petition}.]
     1. Forward; pert; insolent; wanton. [Obs.] --Burton.
        [1913 Webster]
  


     2. Capriciously fretful; characterized by ill-natured
        freakishness; irritable. "Petulant moods." --Macaulay.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Irritable; ill-humored; peevish; cross; fretful;
          querulous.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

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

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

  109 Moby Thesaurus words for "petulant":
     Jeremianic, arbitrary, bad-tempered, beefing, bellyaching, bilious,
     bitching, cantankerous, capricious, captious, catty, choleric,
     complaining, complaintful, crabbed, crabbing, crabby, cranky,
     croaking, cross, crotchety, disappointed, discontented,
     disgruntled, displeased, dissatisfied, envious, fanciful,
     fantasied, fantastic, faultfinding, flaky, fractious, freakish,
     fretful, griping, grouchy, grousing, growling, grumbling, grumpy,
     harebrained, howling, huffish, huffy, humorsome, ill-humored,
     ill-tempered, impatient, irascible, irritable, kinky, lamentive,
     maggoty, malcontent, malcontented, moanful, moody, motiveless,
     mournful, murmuring, muttering, nagging, naggy, notional,
     out of humor, peevish, perverse, pettish, plaintive, plangent,
     puling, querulant, querulous, quirky, rebellious, resentful,
     restive, restless, shrewish, snappish, sorrowful, sour, splenetic,
     sulky, temperamental, testy, ululant, unaccepting, unaccommodating,
     uneasy, unfulfilled, ungratified, unhappy, unreasonable,
     unrestrained, unsatisfied, vagarious, vagrant, vixenish, vixenly,
     wailful, wanton, waspish, wayward, whimpering, whimsical, whining,
     whiny