Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To cause to be annoyed or resentful. See Synonyms at annoy.
- n. A vexation; a grievance.
- n. A resentful mood: in a peeve about the delays.
Wiktionary
WordNet 3.0
- n. an annoyed or irritated mood
- v. cause to be annoyed, irritated, or resentful
Etymologies
- Back-formation from peevish. (Wiktionary)
- Back-formation from peevish. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But really my main peeve is how they use it to detail every minute of their day … and people actually care.”
“My biggest pet peeve is publishers 'seemingly random decisions on changing the format of books.”
“My own personal pet peeve is striking through text.”
“Jan: Thanks for the article; it did soothe me substantially, and I really like your argument that the age of peeve is ending.”
Won’t someone please think of the adverbs? « Motivated Grammar
“However, my pet-peeve is people who expect you to show up EARLY.”
“Speaking of unnecessary administrative overhead, my new pet peeve is mail-in rebates.”
Pseudo-currency, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“My pet peeve is people that see my decoys and move in right next to me, throw out decoys and start shooting at every duck out of range.”
“My pet peeve is people that see my decoys and move in right next to me, throw out decoys and start shooting at every duck out of | Field & Stream”
“Another pet peeve is when some folks get all over you for keeping the fish you catch.”
“My own personal pet peeve is the underutilization of Douglass North and the new institutional economics.”
Dogs Not Barking, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘peeve’.
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 99 more...
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WF - list of EN back-formations
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_back-formations
aborigine, accrete, acculturate, admix, admixture, adolesce, adsorb, adulate, advect, aesthete, air-condition, anticline and 212 more...
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Naresh_Special
portent, organically, malicious, sham, olfactory, vertebrates, protuberance, sensilla, flagitious, pleonastic, exiguous, wayward and 102 more...
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summerwing's Words
proctosigmoidoscopy, horrendous, cichlid, implode, nostalgic, firmament, elucidate, quintet, rhombus, mack, pithy, rambunctious and 304 more...
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imogen's Words
coagitate, cloche, harum-scarum, foxglove, cryptolect, cant, roux, angora, duff, ulysse, schadenfreude, pepperpot and 315 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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sarahatlee's Words
pants, nekkid, schadenfreude, unseasonably, illicit, glaswegian, cripes, futz, drawers, scupper, coulrophobic, redacted and 254 more...
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ifjuly's list
favorite words. some are made up injokes between me and my husband or family.
skein, zaftig, july, bed, orifice, aesthete, ink, parce-que, desormais, cake, pusillanimous, pulse and 531 more...
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Addenda to the 1923 Printing of Webst...
Many of these words first came into common usage during World War I, and reflect not only the technological and scientific leaps of the early part of the 20th century, but the new experience of glo...
abri, ace, acidosis, airdrome, air fleet, airplane, air raid, airworthy, altimeter, anaphylaxis, anociassociation, anti-aircraft and 292 more...
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New York Times
All the words I don't know in New York Times Sunday Newspaper
inexorable, discerning, revere, warp, garner, backlash, ample, cachet, nonagenarian, plaintive, inaugural, shrine and 58 more...
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verbs
eschew, chaperone, poach, reciprocate, meander, relent, chide, flail, redeem, stutter, resent, belabor and 24 more...
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snarlie
grumpy words
snarly, peevish, grumpy, fractious, persnickety, scathing, shirty, stroppy, tetchy, waspish, grumble, peeve and 28 more...
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unsorted
altercation, accommodate, allocate, arbitrary, blistering, comprehensive, consistent, contradict, differentiate, pledge, dismiss, explicit and 26 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for peeve.
reesetee Good point. :-) Jan 7, 2008
mollusque It's the balance of vowels and consonants. Peevedness isn't as good as peeved either. Jan 7, 2008
reesetee I don't either--but oddly, I do like peeved. Hmm. Jan 7, 2008
brtom I don't like this word ... so why do I use it? Jan 6, 2008