quarrelsome
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of quarrelsome
Explanation
When you are quick to pick a fight or disagree, you are quarrelsome. Toddlers are often quarrelsome. So are couples, at least with each other. If you know that quarrel means to argue or fight, then this is an easy word to figure out. People who are quarrelsome seem to constantly get in fights. Quarrelsome people are often moody or sensitive: any little thing can get them upset. Other people usually don't like to work with or be around quarrelsome folks. However, any of us can get quarrelsome at times, especially when we're under stress or have an empty stomach.
Vocabulary lists containing quarrelsome
The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 4
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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In the Mood? 100 Words to Describe Emotions
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Missionary Carrington and Quarrelsome Smith taught young tribesmen how to converse with a two-toned hollowed wood drum.
From Time Magazine Archive
Quarrelsome Bulgars and the night-watchmen of Constantinople heard its thin droning and all night it sped on over Anatolia, Kurdistan, down the Euphrates Valley to meet the dawn.
From Time Magazine Archive
The imaginative little fellow invents all sorts of games for his guests: "Stern Parent," "Quarrelsome Children."
From Time Magazine Archive
Quarrelsome, he broke his contract because the illustrator was to get more money than he, was stranded until friends got him a job teaching school in Matsue.
From Time Magazine Archive
Oh, why don't you finish that great beautiful thing, and leave all this world of reality and newspapers, all these Crude, Vulgar, Quarrelsome, Jarring things to other people?
From Mr. Britling Sees It Through by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
