Search the Dictionary

Disposed to fret; ill-humored; peevish; angry; in a state of vexation; as, a fretful temper. -- Fret"ful-ly, adv. -- Fret"ful-ness, n.

Affected mentally or morally as with canker; sore, envenomed; malignant; fretful; ill-natured. "A cankered grandam's will." Shak.

Fretfully; spitefully.

Characterized by, or in a state of, peevishness, fretfullness, or ill humor; as, a cross man or woman. He had received a cross answer from his mistress. Jer. Taylor.

Athwart; adversely; unfortunately; peevishly; fretfully; with ill humor.

The quality or state of being cross; peevishness; fretfulness; ill humor.

To sound, as a bell; to ring; to clang. The fretful tinkling of the convent bell evermore dinging among the mountain echoes. W. Irving.

A state of anxious or fretful excitement; worry; vexation. [Obs.]

Fretful excitement. [Obs.] See Feaze.

e wife or the woman was the more freakish of the two. L'Estrange. Freakish when well, and fretful when she's sick. Pope. -- Freak"ish*ly, adv. -- Freak"ish*ness, n.

Choler; fretfulness; passion.

Of bad temper; morose; crabbed; sour; peevish; fretful; quarrelsome.

delay; eagerness for change, or for something expected; restlessness; chafing of spirit; fretfulness; passion; as, the impatience of a child or an invalid. I then, . . . Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered neglectingly. Shak. With huge impatience he inly swelt More for great sorrow that he could not pass, Than…

Not patient; not bearing with composure; intolerant; uneasy; fretful; restless, because of pain, delay, or opposition; eager for change, or for something expected; hasty; passionate; -- often followed by at, for, of, and under. A violent, sudden, and impatient necessity. Jer. Taylor. Fame, impatient of extremes, decays…

The state or quality of being irritable; quick excitability; petulance; fretfulness; as, irritability of temper.

Hence: Out of humor; peevish; angry; fretful; also, abstracted and pensive; sad; gloomy; melancholy. "Every peevish, moody malcontent." Rowe. Arouse thee from thy moody dream! Sir W. Scott.

a constellation. Shak. [/Make] each particular hair to stand an end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. Shak. Seken in every halk and every herne Particular sciences for to lerne. Chaucer.

Undergoing pains, trails, or the like, without murmuring or fretfulness; bearing up with equanimity against trouble; long- suffering.

Habitually fretful; easily vexed or fretted; hard to please; apt to complain; querulous; petulant. "Her peevish babe." Wordsworth. She is peevish, sullen, froward. Shak.

A slight fit of peevishness or fretfulness. "In a pet she started up." Tennyson.