 |
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Petulant \Pet"u*lant\, adjective [L. petulans, -antis, prop., making slight attacks upon, from a lost dim. of petere to fall upon, to attack: cf. F. p['e]tulant. See {Petition}.]
1. Forward; pert; insolent; wanton. [Obs.] --Burton.
2. Capriciously fretful; characterized by ill-natured freakishness; irritable. ''Petulant moods.'' --Macaulay.
Syn: Irritable; ill-humored; peevish; cross; fretful; querulous.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
petulant
adjective: easily irritated or annoyed; "an incorrigibly fractious young man"; "not the least nettlesome of his countrymen" [syn: {cranky}, {fractious}, {irritable}, {nettlesome}, {peevish}, {peckish}, {pettish}, {testy}, {tetchy}, {techy}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
109 Moby Thesaurus words for "petulant": Jeremianic, arbitrary, bad-tempered, beefing, bellyaching, bilious, bitching, cantankerous, capricious, captious, catty, choleric, complaining, complaintful, crabbed, crabbing, crabby, cranky, croaking, cross, crotchety, disappointed, discontented, disgruntled, displeased, dissatisfied, envious, fanciful, fantasied, fantastic, faultfinding, flaky, fractious, freakish, fretful, griping, grouchy, grousing, growling, grumbling, grumpy, harebrained, howling, huffish, huffy, humorsome, ill-humored, ill-tempered, impatient, irascible, irritable, kinky, lamentive, maggoty, malcontent, malcontented, moanful, moody, motiveless, mournful, murmuring, muttering, nagging, naggy, notional, out of humor, peevish, perverse, pettish, plaintive, plangent, puling, querulant, querulous, quirky, rebellious, resentful, restive, restless, shrewish, snappish, sorrowful, sour, splenetic, sulky, temperamental, testy, ululant, unaccepting, unaccommodating, uneasy, unfulfilled, ungratified, unhappy, unreasonable, unrestrained, unsatisfied, vagarious, vagrant, vixenish, vixenly, wailful, wanton, waspish, wayward, whimpering, whimsical, whining, whiny
 |
Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |