peevish

Meaning

1. Bad-tempered, moody, cross, petulant, pettish
2. Constantly complaining, whining; childishly fretful.
3. Easily annoyed, especially by things that are not important; irritable, querulous.
4. (obsolete) Clever, expert.
5. (obsolete) Sharp, piercing, bitter (of the wind); windy, blustery (of the weather).
6. (obsolete) Perverse, refractory; headstrong, obstinate; capricious, skittish; (also) coy.
7. (obsolete) Silly, senseless, foolish.
8. (obsolete) Beside oneself; out of one's senses; mad.
9. (obsolete) Spiteful, malignant, mischievous, harmful.
10. (obsolete) Hateful, distasteful, horrid.

petulant

pettish

captious

be cross

be disagreeable

be petulant

illtempered

atrabilious

of sour countenance

of sour temper

splenish

easily offended

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈpiːvɪʃ/

From Middle English pevische, pevisse, pevysse, peivesshe, also peyuesshe, peeuish, of obscure origin. Perhaps from Middle English pew, pue (“a plaintive cry, the cry of a bird”), equivalent to pue + -ish. Cognate with Scots pevis, pevess, pevych, pevach (“peevish”), Scots pew, peu (“to cry in a plaintive manner”). See pue. An alternative etymology derives Middle English peyvesshe (“capricious, silly”), as a possible corruption of Latin perversus (“perverted”). The meaning “fretful” develops in the 16th century. A third suggestion links the word to classical Latin expavidus (“startled, shy”) (< ex- + pavidus) via an unrecorded variant with -ai- of Middle French espave (“stray [of animals]; foreign [of persons]; lost property, flotsam”) (first attested 1283 in Old French; Modern French épave). The semantic connection is thought to be the behaviour of stray animals. Compare -ish suffix.