1.
[syn: bristly, prickly, splenetic, waspish]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Waspish \Wasp"ish\, a.
1. Resembling a wasp in form; having a slender waist, like a
wasp.
[1913 Webster]
2. Quick to resent a trifling affront; characterized by
snappishness; irritable; irascible; petulant; snappish.
[1913 Webster]
He was naturally a waspish and hot man. --Bp. Hall.
[1913 Webster]
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace
This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race.
--Pope.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Snappish; petulant; irritable; irascible; testy;
peevish; captious.
[1913 Webster] -- Wasp"ish*ly, adv. --
Wasp"ish*ness, n.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
waspish
adj 1: very irritable; "bristly exchanges between the White
House and the press"; "he became prickly and spiteful";
"witty and waspish about his colleagues" [syn: bristly,
prickly, splenetic, waspish]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
40 Moby Thesaurus words for "waspish":
bearish, bitchy, cankered, cantankerous, churlish, contrary,
crabbed, cranky, cross, cross-grained, crotchety, crusty, cussed,
disagreeable, excitable, feisty, fractious, fretful, huffish,
huffy, impatient, irascible, irritable, malicious, mean, ornery,
peevish, perverse, pettish, petulant, querulous, sharp, snappish,
spiteful, spleeny, splenetic, testy, ugly, vinegarish, vinegary