QUERULOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does querulous mean? 

• QUERULOUS (adjective)
  The adjective QUERULOUS has 1 sense:

1. habitually complaining

  Familiarity information: QUERULOUS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• QUERULOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Habitually complaining

Synonyms:

fretful; querulous; whiney; whiny

Context example:

a whiny child

Similar:

complaining; complaintive (expressing pain or dissatisfaction of resentment)

Derivation:

querulousness (the quality of being given to complaining)

 Context examples 

Phelps was still weak after his long illness, and his misfortune made him querulous and nervous.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All day he had been querulous in manner, and now some remark of Lord John's as to what we should do on the morrow brought all his bitterness to a head.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This is very painful—very painful and terrible, said Mr. Scott Eccles in a querulous voice, but it is really uncommonly hard on me.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His voice lost its querulous and whimpering note, and became strong and positive.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

“One moment—one moment!” cried a querulous voice, and we looked up to find a queer little old man, jerking and twitching in the doorway.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The poem swung in majestic rhythm to the cool tumult of interstellar conflict, to the onset of starry hosts, to the impact of cold suns and the flaming up of nebulae in the darkened void; and through it all, unceasing and faint, like a silver shuttle, ran the frail, piping voice of man, a querulous chirp amid the screaming of planets and the crash of systems.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and, by the middle of June, Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears; an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow,” said he in the querulous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)