shrewish

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   bad-tempered, quarrelsome, and habitually complaining; now old-fashioned and offensive when applied to a woman

   The novel gives the aunt a shrewish manner and a cutting voice.

From shrew + -ish. Shrew was used in Middle English for a wicked, malicious, or scolding person and later especially as a disparaging label for a woman; shrewish preserves that human sense rather than referring directly to the small mammal.

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