Crossword clues for pettish
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pettish \Pet"tish\, a. [From Pet.]
Fretful; peevish; moody; capricious; inclined to ill temper.
``A pettish kind of humor.''
--Sterne. -- Pet"tish*ly, adv.
-- Pet"tish*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1550s, "impetuous," evidently from pet (n.2) in its "ill humor" sense + -ish. Meaning "peevish, easily annoyed" is from 1590s.\n\nIt has naturally been assoc. with PET sb.1, as being a characteristic habit of a "pet" or indulged and spoiled child; but the connexion of sense is not very clear or simple .... [OED]\nRelated: Pettishly; pettishness.
Wiktionary
a. bad-tempered; peevish
WordNet
Usage examples of "pettish".
Whether she regretted having given him as much encouragement as lay in a rose dropped from her corsage, or whether she resented the introduction into the party of so unprepossessing a gentleman as Mr Gumley, no one could tell, but although she relented towards him from time to time, even allowing her hand to rest in his for a moment longer than was necessary when he handed her down from the barouche, she was for the most part a little pettish in her manner, and made it plain that he could do nothing to please her.
Miss Marling was pettish over the choice of a morning wrapper, and complained that her chocolate was too sweet.
At any rate I gave way, muttering something pettish, I expect, and I escorted my titubant doxy, who was now frothing at the mouth, through the crowd which had begun to collect and up to her room on this landing.
Ciudad Real - that forlornest of royal cities - her face wore the pettish look of one who, having passed through great events, having tasted of great passions and moved amid the machinery of life and death, finds the ordinary routine of existence intolerably irksome.