petulance

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Or did we perhaps witness a cheeky acknowledgement by the show's writing team that Tommy needs some character traits -- other than sterility and petulance, that is -- pronto?

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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 (50)

  • 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
  • The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. —  Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1
  • What other friend would bear its petulance, and smooth its feverish pillow This proved to be her last earthly message to me. —  Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers
  • Or did we perhaps witness a cheeky acknowledgement by the show's writing team that Tommy needs some character traits -- other than sterility and petulance, that is -- pronto? —  Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
  • He gives a shrug of petulance, arises and begs her to have his seat. —  'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!'
 

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Etymologies (1)

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  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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