pettish
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pettish
Explanation
If you stomp your foot angrily when the bakery is out of your favorite cupcake flavor, you're acting pettish, or like a little kid who's in a cranky mood. If you do nothing but complain in the emails you write your grandparents — about the weather, your friends, your family, and what you had for lunch — they may think of you as pettish. Pettish people are irritable and petulant. Some word experts believe there's a connection between the adjective pettish and being a pet, or a spoiled child.
Vocabulary lists containing pettish
The Secret Garden
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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The Borrowers
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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.
Pettish critics have sometimes said that reading Jules Remains' serial novel, Men of Good Will, is like reading backfiles of French newspapers from Oct.
From Time Magazine Archive
Pettish she is, certainly, but oh, signore, lovely, lovely, like un angiolin'!
From Margarita's Soul The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty by Williams, J. Scott (John Scott)
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.
