peevish
/ˈpivɪʃ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.91 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Constantly complaining, especially in a childish way due to insignificant matters; fretful, whiny.
adj
Quick to become bad-tempered or cross, especially due to insignificant matters; irritable, pettish, petulant.
Example Sentences
- "Due to the long wait, there were several peevish patients in the doctor’s waiting room."
- "[T]he nature of religion, […] showeth it consisteth […] not in a peevish crossness and obstinate repugnancy to received laws and customs, but in a quiet and peaceable submission to the express laws of God, and lawful commands of man; […]"
- "This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him."
- "[T]he luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish."
- "There is E——, […] querulous and dictatorial, and with a peevish whine in his voice like a beaten school-boy."
- "Our tragedian was a rough joker off the stage; our prime clown the most peevish mortal living. The latter used to go about snapping and snarling, with a broad laugh painted on his countenance; […] there is no more melancholy creature in existence than a mountebank off duty."
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Late Middle English pievish, peuysche, pevish, pevysh (“capricious, wilful; perverse, wayward”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from one of the following: * From an unattested Old French word, from Latin perversus (“corrupted, perverted, subverted; overthrown”), the perfect passive participle of pervertō (“to corrupt, subvert; to overthrow”), from per- (prefix meaning ‘intensively, thoroughly’) + vertō (“to turn; to turn upside down, overturn, overthrow, subvert”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to rotate; to turn”)). However, the Oxford English Dictionary says this derivation “presents some formal difficulties”. * From Middle French *expaive + -ish (similar to; somewhat, rather). *Expaive is an unattested variant of Middle French espave, Old French espave (“(adjective) of an animal: stray; of a person: foreign; (noun) flotsam; lost property”) (referring to the behaviour of stray animals; modern French épave), from Latin expavidus (“extremely frightened or horrified”), from ex- (intensifying prefix) + pavidus (“fearful, terrified; quaking, trembling; shy, timid”) (from paveō (“to be afraid; fear; to quake or tremble with fear”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *paw- (“to hit, strike”)) + -idus (suffix meaning ‘tending to’ forming adjectives)). The adverb is derived from the adjective.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpivɪʃ/
- British English: /ˈpiːvɪʃ/