testy

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“
This grizzled old fighter -- testy, choleric, superannuated -- was utterly incompetent for his post.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. adjective Irritated, impatient, or exasperated; peevish: a testy cab driver; a testy refusal to help.
  2. Word History
    To the casual eye testy and heady seem to have no connection; a more thoughtful examination reveals that both words refer to the head. The head in heady is easy to see in both the form and meanings of the word. The earliest sense, first recorded in a work composed before 1382, is "headlong, headstrong,” which is clearly a "head” sense; but so is the better-known current sense "apt to go to the head, intoxicating.” To see the head in testy, we must look back to the Old French word testu, the source of our word. Testu is derived from the Old French word teste, "head” (Modern French tête). In English testy developed another sense, "aggressive, contentious,” which passed into the sense we are familiar with, "irritable.”

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (42)

  • He appeared testy, his efforts at easy sarcasm with the media falling as flat as they did in his initial press conference a little over a week ago. —  The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
  • Sleep deprivation also makes one a little testy, at least it does me, and throws a pall of depression over the day itself. —  UUpdates - All updates
  • Would kind of make anyone (palin) "testy" when the top cop (Monegan) in Alaska announces that he would blow her fathers brains out .. just after he taszers her nephew!!! .. —  Latest Articles
  • Things are getting testy, at least for some, in the search to replace retiring Police Chief Heather Fong. —  SFGate: Top News Stories
  • You have every right to be sarcastic and testy, the way this ready-made Media is in the tank for Obama. —  The Caucus
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This word has been looked up 95 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

touchy ·  snappish ·  choleric ·  acrimonious ·  fretful ·  splenetic ·  cranky ·  hot-tempered ·  ill-tempered ·  brusque ·  surly ·  waspish
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Alteration of Middle English testif, headstrong, from Old French testu, from teste, head, from Late Latin testa, skull; see teston.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English testie, teastie; from Middle English testif, from Old French testu, French têtu, heady, headstrong, testy, from teste, head: see test.
 

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/ˈtɛsi/
by American Heritage

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