Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1570s, "pertaining to a plague," from plague (n.) + -y (2). Figurative meaning "vexatious, troublesome" is from 1610s. As an adverb (properly it would be plaguily) it is attested from 1580s, often with deliberate attempt at humor. Johnson also has woundy "excessive."
Wiktionary
a. (alternative spelling of plaguy English)
WordNet
adj. likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease; "a pestilential malignancy in the air"- Jonathan Swift; "plaguey fevers" [syn: pestilent, pestilential, pestiferous]
causing irritation or annoyance; "tapping an annoying rhythm on his glass with his fork"; "aircraft noise is particularly bothersome near the airport"; "found it galling to have to ask permission"; "an irritating delay"; "nettlesome paperwork"; "a pesky mosquito"; "swarms of pestering gnats"; "a plaguey newfangled safety catch"; "a teasing and persistent thought annoyed him"; "a vexatious child"; "it is vexing to have to admit you are wrong" [syn: annoying, bothersome, galling, irritating, nettlesome, pesky, pestering, pestiferous, plaguy, teasing, vexatious, vexing]
adv. in a disagreeable manner; "it's so plaguey cold!" [syn: plaguy, plaguily]
Usage examples of "plaguey".
Lagan and Airgialla, my armies were sitting siege before Corcaigh, the capital of Muma, and also had marched into Connachta, defeated everything that stood before them, and driven that plaguey king of theirs and his scabrous sons into their burrow and were set to smoke them out.
The young fellow was a plaguey long time deciding that he wanted to take the girl to bed with him.
He was always the best of the plaguey lot of Fenimores, even if he was a handful at times.
They made a tattered army, and the reek from some, even in the winter cold of court, forced the judge to hold his nose, for fear their plaguey breath might carry him off.
Your bucolic mind would never rise to the subtle import which may lie in such matters--the rest of mind which it is to have them right, and the plaguey uneasiness when aught is wrong.
And at black midnight, from the lonely cross-roads where he turned from town into his own place, came his plaguey cachinnations to rouse me from my sleep and make me writhe and clench my nails into my palms.
Armstrong is a plaguey sight more worried about the future than she is about the past.
The Gaff and Slasher to look up the stairs and see that fool of a boy pinned to the wall with his neck half-wrung, but all I wanted to deal with then was a gallon of my own red ale, and this was one plaguey annoyance too many.
His memory of thrusting that plaguey will between the bars of the library fire must have been a drunken dream.
The folks as we'se a-workin' for said we must be plaguey keerful about the deetecters.