Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Chiefly British Ill-tempered; angry: "He saw how shirty she was about it” ( P.G. Wodehouse).
Wiktionary
- adj. ill-tempered or annoyed.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (British informal) ill-tempered or annoyed
Etymologies
- Probably from to get someone's shirt out, to annoy.
Examples
“Now I have to work a slime monster and the word shirty into some future book.”
“I wuz just talking to a Brit lady and she said she felt definitely "shirty" about something or other.”
“Your call may be monitored for training purposesWe know you're cross, but don't get shirty.”
The Guardian: Call centre culture puts the whole world on hold
“I actaully kind of thought that it was closer to a Bond feel myself (action wise) I think this will be a good adaptation and intpretation of Holmes, not so stuffed shirty.”
“Its a bit rich Ministers getting all shirty about his pension when their own is both gold and diamond plated – and just look how incompetent they are.”
Sir Fred Goodwin drawing a pension of £650,000 a year aged 50
“If they get shirty I stop and depending on the tone of their posting, I may remove all the posts in the thread and block them.”
“I remember ages ago when smoking was allowed in public service offices but it was about to be abolished and some guy at a party getting shirty about it and I was defending the decison.”
“The debate ends with the two men getting shirty with each other, and Crist creepily invading Rubio's personal space.”
“Uhm, okay, dude, nice dig, but Obama supported the dawning of the "bailout era," too, so let's not get all shirty here, okay?”
“Will starts by getting all shirty about Social Security, and how "we'll be wallowing in the health care system for years to come.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shirty’.
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UK Usage - Find US Equivalent
All these terms have a (different) American English equivalent. Wonder if you can identify them?
abridgement (abri..., accoutrement, accoutre, acknowledgement (..., opposite, advert, adaptor, adapter, sticking plaster, advertise, adviser (advisor ..., adze, aesthete and 1196 more...
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[Open] Correctly-spelled words that look like m...
Thanks to everyone who added to this list. (I moved it to a new URL, so all the words added on the first day are credited to me—sorry about that.)
(Here’s the original list with a slo...orignal, refect, collum, lightening, manakin, neumatic, mutch, miosis, radicle, tryptic, kyack, apatite and 117 more...
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 more...
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British English that's not in American English
British English that's not in American English
dummy, ta, answerphone, first fifteen soccer, first eleven cricket, shirty, fag, Black Monday, filter coffee, woolyback, motoring, loo and 10 more...
reesetee Haha! I've heard chesty used this way too. :-) Feb 18, 2008
anydelirium '"Look, son," the cop says. "There's no need to get all shirty with me."
'"Shirty??"
'"YES, shirty."
'I quite like the word.' -the book I Am The Messenger, by Markus Zusak Feb 18, 2008
arby The only thing I love more than this word is the fact that it was on Buffy. I once won a bet with my Dad that "shirty" was a real word. Having read my Wodehouse I knew I was right. Ha! Feb 15, 2007
arby “He saw how shirty she was about it�? (P.G. Wodehouse)
Etymology: Probably from to get someone's shirt out, to annoy, or to keep one's shirt on, to keep from being annoyed. Feb 15, 2007
john Spike: That's fine. You don't have to get shirty about it.
Buffy: I'm not shirty. And what is shirty? That's not even a word.
- BtVS, "End of Days" Jan 22, 2007