tetchy

Feb. 11th, 2016 07:45 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (words are sexy)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
tetchy (TECH-ee) - adj., irritable, touchy, easily annoyed.


Is more likely to be used in British than American English, but it's not unknown in the States. This is an old one -- attested in this sense back in 1592, spelled teachie or techy in Romeo & Juliet I.iii, from Middle English teche (retained in Scots as tache) meaning defect/mark/blotch with influence of touchy, from Old French teche, from conjectured Vulgar Latin *tacca, from a Germanic source that's cognate with English token.

---L.

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