pettishness

And he suspected that her nature tended toward shrewishness, which he, as a soldier who despised any pettishness, personally disliked.

In Gordath Wood: Writer Patrice Sarath » Lady Blackheart 2009

Captain Jekyl threw away the remnant of his cigar, with a little movement of pettishness, and began to whistle an opera air.

Saint Ronan's Well 2008

They then separated; Mrs Harrel half angry at remonstrances she thought only censorious, and Cecilia offended at her pettishness and folly, though grieved at her blindness.

Cecilia 2008

She could hear the pettishness in her own voice, and hated it.

The Messenger Jan Burke 2008

Yet afterwards, in the course of the ensuing day, she seemed to have recovered, not merely her spirits and resolution, but a sort of flighty levity, that was foreign to her character and situation, and which was at times chequered by fits of deep silence and melancholy and of capricious pettishness.

The Bride of Lammermoor 2008

They are gentle and affectionate in captivity — full of tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett

Essays 2007

I know not; but so it was, that he stamped on the floor with pettishness, and then checking himself, burst into a violent flood of tears.

Westward Ho! 2007

Then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for her pettishness and ingratitude and determined to make a reparation to honest William for the slight she had not expressed to him, but had felt for his piano.

Vanity Fair 2006

The sense that she was observed, or, more properly speaking, that she was watched by my looks, seemed to give Diana a mixture of embarrassment, pain, and pettishness.

Rob Roy 2005

But really there was something quite charming in her pettishness: it looked so much more like innocent distress than ill humour; and the severe Adam felt no movement of disapprobation; he only felt a sort of amused pity, as if he had seen a kitten setting up its back, or

Adam Bede 2004