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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Peevish \Pee"vish\, adjective [OE. pevische; of uncertain origin, perh. from a word imitative of the noise made by fretful children + -ish.]
1. Habitually fretful; easily vexed or fretted; hard to please; apt to complain; querulous; petulant. ''Her peevish babe.'' --Wordsworth.
She is peevish, sullen, froward. --Shak.
2. Expressing fretfulness and discontent, or unjustifiable dissatisfaction; as, a peevish answer.
3. Silly; childish; trifling. [Obs.]
To send such peevish tokens to a king. --Shak.
Syn: Querulous; petulant; cross; ill-tempered; testy; captious; discontented. See {Fretful}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
peevish
adjective: easily irritated or annoyed; "an incorrigibly fractious young man"; "not the least nettlesome of his countrymen" [syn: {cranky}, {fractious}, {irritable}, {nettlesome}, {peckish}, {pettish}, {petulant}, {testy}, {tetchy}, {techy}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
92 Moby Thesaurus words for "peevish": Jeremianic, acrimonious, bad-tempered, beefing, bellyaching, bilious, bitching, cantankerous, captious, carping, catty, caviling, cavilling, churlish, complaining, complaintful, crabbed, crabbing, crabby, cranky, critical, croaking, cross, crotchety, crusty, disappointed, discontented, disgruntled, displeased, dissatisfied, envious, faultfinding, fractious, fretful, griping, grouchy, grousing, growling, grumbling, grumpish, grumpy, howling, huffy, ill-humored, ill-natured, ill-tempered, irritable, lamentive, malcontent, malcontented, moanful, mournful, murmuring, muttering, nagging, naggy, out of humor, pettish, petulant, plaintive, plangent, puling, querulant, querulous, rebellious, resentful, restive, restless, short-tempered, shrewish, snappish, sorrowful, splenetic, sulky, testy, tetchy, touchy, ululant, unaccepting, unaccommodating, uneasy, unfulfilled, ungratified, unhappy, unsatisfied, vixenish, vixenly, wailful, waspish, whimpering, whining, whiny
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