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View synonyms for fractious

fractious

[ frak-shuhs ]

adjective

  1. refractory or unruly:

    a fractious animal that would not submit to the harness.

    Synonyms: difficult, stubborn

  2. readily angered; peevish; irritable; quarrelsome:

    an incorrigibly fractious young man.

    Synonyms: touchy, waspish, pettish, snappish, petulant, captious, testy



fractious

/ ˈfrækʃəs /

adjective

  1. irritable
  2. unruly


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Usage

Fractious is sometimes wrongly used where factious is meant: this factious (not fractious ) dispute has split the party still further

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Derived Forms

  • ˈfractiously, adverb
  • ˈfractiousness, noun

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Other Words From

  • fractious·ly adverb
  • fractious·ness noun
  • un·fractious adjective
  • un·fractious·ly adverb
  • un·fractious·ness noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of fractious1

First recorded in 1715–25; fracti(on) + -ous

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Word History and Origins

Origin of fractious1

C18: from (obsolete) fraction discord + -ous

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Example Sentences

The post Google’s delayed cookie cull is an inevitable intermission to its fractious pursuit of privacy protections appeared first on Digiday.

From Digiday

It’s been a fractious and scary year, but these pandemic babies will still laugh deliriously at the smallest of forgotten joys, like squeezing mashed potatoes through their fingers or grabbing the dog’s nose.

From Time

On the other hand, there’s no way to know the Taliban’s true intentions or whether the often fractious group has a united view.

From Ozy

In her stories, everyday problems — the challenges of managing an unwieldy paper route, dealing with a fractious sibling or coping with an absent parent — became tales of triumph.

Companies that collectively pour millions of dollars each year into campaigns through employee-funded PACs are registering their worry and anger about last week’s chaos with a reexamination of their role in powering the nation’s fractious politics.

Relationships in her "blood family," a distinction her brother pointedly made at her funeral, were often strained and fractious.

Starting with the House, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was largely successful in keeping his fractious caucus largely in check.

The story told on these walls is a fractured and fractious one that consciously resists an easy narrative.

He was well aware of the fractious history between Congress and the White House on Gitmo and was determined to start anew.

We are a troubled and fractious country, in a difficult neighbourhood.

"I felt tired because I met no one I cared for," she answered, in rather fractious tones.

He could not think of one, for being alone made him feel fractious, yet he could not bear to meet any one.

We expect to be caught with chaff, like fractious colts coquetting with the halter and secretly not unwilling to be caught.

He had been regarding with interest a shackled-kneed varlet holding a halberd in his arms as if it had been a fractious bairn.

In her secret heart Eunice knew that when her sister was tired out she was fractious; she loved her too well to say cross words.

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fractionizefractocumulus