petulance

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It's no coincidence that his petulance was at its highest and his form and behaviour at a low when

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Definitions (4)

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  1. Sauciness; wantonness; rudeness. This man, being a wit, a poet, and a minstrel, composed many indecent songs against me, and sung them openly, to the great entertainment of mine enemies; and, since it has pleased God to deliver him into my hands, I [Henry I.] will punish him, to deter others from the like petulance. Ord. Vitalis, Hist. Eccles. (trans.), p. 881.
  2. The character of being petulant; a petulant character or disposition; peevish impatience or caprice; pettishness. The misery of man appears like childish petulance. Emerson, Nature.
  3. Synonyms See captious and petulant.

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Examples

  • The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. —  Life Of Johnson
  • At thirteen years Fourier had the petulance, the noisy vivacity of most young people of the same age; but his character changed all at once, and as if by enchantment, as soon as he was initiated in the first principles of mathematics, that is to say, as soon as he became sensible of his real vocation. —  Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
  • [595] Hume (Auto.p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the Warburtonian school.' —  Life Of Johnson
  • It's no coincidence that his petulance was at its highest and his form and behaviour at a low when —  Evening Standard - Home
  • What other friend would bear its petulance, and smooth its feverish pillow? " —  Memoirs of 30 Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers
 

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Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from French pétulance, Old French petulance = Spanish Portuguese petulancia = Italian petulanza, petulanzia, from Latin petulantia, sauciness, petulance, from petulan(t-)s, petulant: see petulant.
 

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