tetchiness

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tetch·y

also tech·y (tĕch′ē)

adj. tetch·i·er, tetch·i·est also tech·i·er or tech·i·est

Peevish; testy: "As a critic gets older, he or she usually grows more tetchy and limited in responses" (James Wolcott).

[Probably from Middle English tache, teche, blemish (influenced by touchy), from Old French tache, teche, from Vulgar Latin *tacca, from Gothic taikns, sign; see deik- in Indo-European roots.]

tetch′i·ly adv.

tetch′i·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

tetchiness - feeling easily irritated

testiness, touchiness

choler, crossness, fretfulness, fussiness, irritability, peevishness, petulance - an irritable petulant feeling

tetchiness

or techiness
noun

A tendency to become angry or irritable:

irascibility, irascibleness, spleen, temper, temperament.

Informal: dander.

Slang: short fuse.

Idiom: low boiling point.

Translations

tetchiness

[ˈtetʃɪnɪs] N → irritabilidad f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

tetchiness

n (esp Brit inf) (on particular occasion) → Gereiztheit f; (as general characteristic) → Reizbarkeit f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in periodicals archive ?

With a late goal - from a combination of Browne and Jerome Sinclair - a minor full-time scuffle and some rare post-match tetchiness from Ross, you could feel Sunderland's frustration at the Kassam Stadium in February, but this time it was more about themselves.

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The tetchiness was evident when Young hollered at his team-mates to provide more movement.

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There's probably going to be a bit of tetchiness between the players, but ultimately those challenges bring you together.

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While the rights and wrongs of the broadside from three of the club's most senior officials will continue to be discussed, the fact that Uli Hoeness, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Hasan Salihamidzic felt compelled to speak about a facet of the game that has been around for years and is experienced by all clubs, suggests a level of tetchiness about how the German champions are perceived.

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The two-week international lay-off didn't appear to have been kind to Hearts, who started the game completely out of sync with themselves, with 20 minutes of tetchiness and discomfort, players pointing where balls should have been but never were.

AFFRAY THE LADS; MOTHERWELL 0 HEARTS 1; Fired-up Jambos prepared to battle to stay on top as they bludgeon their way past Well

If there isn't anything particularly happy-making going on in our vicinity, that doesn't mean our faces have to be a mask of tetchiness.

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For starters, it highlights North Korea's sudden emergence as Trump's main foreign-policy challenge, suggesting that the strategic patience pursued by former President Barack Obama could well be replaced by a more accident-prone policy of strategic tetchiness.

Asia's American menace a regional risk

It was another unedifying chapter in the long narrative of tetchiness, touchiness and tension between those who can and can't speak the language.

It's time a drawbridge was built in the FOREBODINGWALL OFWELSHNESs

For all the sorrow buried with Sachs, there should surely be an essential stillness to the character--grumpy introspection, yes; tetchiness, no.

It may seem slightly perverse of me to begin this review of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg by praising the conducting, given where I was seated

A great deal of money had by now been invested in Katie and Philip, and the client was showing signs of tetchiness. BMRB had recently launched its Advertising Planning Index, which

ON THE CAMPAIGN COUCH WITH JB

The tetchiness shown only an hour earlier in exchanges over his high jinks in New Zealand is gone.

THE OFFICE; Hamilton: This is where I leave the madness.. where it's just me and the controls. It's a pretty cool work desk.. but the engineers love to give you buttons for everything

It's probably a sign of worry and some tetchiness with the outcome of the championship up for grabs and it being win or bust for England at Twickenham.