Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Irritated, impatient, or exasperated; peevish: a testy cab driver; a testy refusal to help.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Irritable; irascible; choleric; cross; petulant.
- Synonyms Pettish, touchy, waspish, snappish, peevish, splenetic, captious, peppery.
Wiktionary
- adj. Easily annoyed, irritable.
- adj. Marked by impatience or ill humor.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Fretful; peevish; petulant; easily irritated.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. easily irritated or annoyed
Etymologies
- Middle English testif ("headstrong"), from Old French testu, from teste ("head") + -u. Compare modern French tête ("head"), têtu ("stubborn"). (Wiktionary)
- Alteration of Middle English testif, headstrong, from Old French testu, from teste, head, from Late Latin testa, skull; see teston. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“She seems to think getting testy is that same as showing strength.”
State of the Race: Steve Poizner (R CAND, CA-GOV). | RedState
“She comes back, a little testy: "Pollo is the Spanish word for CHICKEN!”
“I especially loved the way she said "testy" - a defining Venetian characteristic”
“Mr. Benn described as testy an exchange of letters between the two leaders over the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.”
“There was only one moment where it approached 'testy' and I swear I saw a set of rolled eyeballs.”
“Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.) described the meeting as "testy," and Sen. John Thune (S.D.) called it a "lively discussion.”
The Washington Post: At President Obama's talks with Senate Republicans, little is accomplished
“Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), on the other hand, called the meeting "testy," while Sen. John Thune (R-S. D.) gave it the less conflictual title of a "lively discussion.”
The Huffington Post: Republicans Say 'Thin Skinned' Obama Should 'Take A Valium'
“Roseanne Barr: Being hated and hunted and blamed for your own suffering makes people kind of testy, nervous, and on edge, and often fundamentalist and extreme.”
“I have to say that while I find her periodically "testy", shall we say, I dare say that I myself would be "testy" on a fairly regular basis were I working every day with the City Hall crowd.”
“As promised below, here's our longer post, with video, about ABC's report yesterday on Obama's allegedly "testy" exchange with a reporter in South Carolina. print share”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘testy’.
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bbc uk china vocab.
conservationists, estimate, threats, infertility, eating away at, endangered, furry, panel, in trouble, gongs, triumphed, caps and 1007 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 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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If You Can't Say Anything Nice
Negative attributes or actions.
biased, cantankerous, caustic, contumacious, dilatory, disdain, duplicitous, fastidious, fractious, glower, haughty, imperious and 22 more...
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Poetic
the blue hour, dinner-pail, long-drawn, pettifog, spoonmeat, crawler, eructate, voiced, medial, tessellated, eyeballs, amphigory and 48 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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What Do You Mean $
ahh these hurt.....
hermit, prone, maxim, guise, solvenly, lurid, lax, amiable, irate, cloister, mediate, nettle and 100 more...
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elvesoncrack's Words
lachrymose, blustering, fjord, chihuahua, chiffon, catalytic, stile, gefilte, prosh, thwart, ralph, ickle and 379 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Expressions
(Facial)
pained, pitiful, reproachful, annoyed, dismissive, excited, eager, spiteful, contemptuous, passive, calm, nervous and 155 more...
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Gre words
a list of the words i HAVE to know..
calumny, demagogue, filigree, quandary, peregrination, quotidian, puerile, cogent, corroborate, martinet, inhibited, polyglot and 105 more...
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From Book - SAT & College Dictionary ...
ebb, exotic, immure, abeyance, panegyric, debonair, protege, dissipate, frantic, penitent, abject, edify and 871 more...
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Only on Wordie/Wordnik
Okay, mostly on Wordie. But it's more fun here anyway.
brannock device, polari, stupidhead, in toto, nounal, flustrated, stuffocate, firkin, full-assed, placeholder name, pro-text, cheesequake and 408 more...
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Sassypants
The qualities of The Diva. Social skills, playful yet bitchy.
churlish, bitchy, cantankerous, peevish, disagreeable, quarrelsome, venomous, grumpy, groachy, crabby, dismal, snappish and 143 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for testy.
uselessness *unless you're trying an expeeryment. Oct 5, 2007
reesetee Never enter uselessness' Land of Madeupical Science without a map. Oct 5, 2007
uselessness It's science!! Oct 4, 2007
reesetee That'll learn me. Never enter uselessness' Land of Madeupical Etymologies without a map. Oct 4, 2007
uselessness On the contrary, there's a proven correlation. Science said it, history proved it, and I vouched for it. The connection is so real, etymology doesn't know about it yet. But it's pretty much indisputable fact amongst educated people. Some groups have even organized their own religions around this unwavering truth. You bet your buttons, you can totally bank on it. Oct 4, 2007
reesetee Don't think so, arby, though I'm not positive. I think testy is from the Latin (and later, Italian and French) for "head"--so "headstrong," more or less.
There's an interesting word history for testis here. Oct 4, 2007
arby D'you suppose this is related to testes? (cf. testicular and the brilliant testiculate) Oct 4, 2007