shrewish
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From shrew + -ish. Compare Middle English schrewis, shrewessh, shrewyssh (“wicked, malignant”).
Adjective
[edit]shrewish (comparative more shrewish, superlative most shrewish)
- Of or pertaining to a shrew (a nagging, ill-tempered woman).
- 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter III, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 60–61:
- “For my own part,” she rejoined, “I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I never could perceive any thing extraordinary. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.”
- Bad-tempered; ill-natured; obstinate, as a shrew.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]of or pertaining to a shrew (ill-tempered, nagging woman)
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