FRETFULNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fretfulness mean? 

• FRETFULNESS (noun)
  The noun FRETFULNESS has 1 sense:

1. an irritable petulant feeling

  Familiarity information: FRETFULNESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FRETFULNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An irritable petulant feeling

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

choler; crossness; fretfulness; fussiness; irritability; peevishness; petulance

Hypernyms ("fretfulness" is a kind of...):

distemper; ill humor; ill humour (an angry and disagreeable mood)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fretfulness"):

testiness; tetchiness; touchiness (feeling easily irritated)

pet (a fit of petulance or sulkiness (especially at what is felt to be a slight))

Derivation:

fretful (habitually complaining)

 Context examples 

Here everybody was noisy, every voice was loud (excepting, perhaps, her mother's, which resembled the soft monotony of Lady Bertram's, only worn into fretfulness).

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She had probably alienated love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could deserve.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger which she had herself incurred in this business, had given more of fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)