WASPISH • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Waspish

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adjective

Waspish adj.

Resembling a wasp in form; having a slender waist, like a wasp.

Quick to resent a trifling affront; characterized by snappishness; irritable; irascible; petulant; snappish. "He was naturally a waspish and hot man." "Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race."

Synonyms: Snappish; petulant; irritable; irascible; testy; peevish; captious.

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Etymology of 'Waspish'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Waspish" Quotes from Famous Books

... friends departed—Chorley—whose Memoirs one now buys from Mudie for 2s. 6d. or so. And well—well—worth to those who recollect him. I only knew him by Face—and Voice—at your Father's, and your Sister's: and used to think what a little waspish Dilettante it was: and now I see he was something very much better indeed: and I only hope I may have Courage to face my Death as he had. Dickens loved him, who did not love Humbugs: and Chorley would have two strips of Gadshill Yew {54} put with him in his Coffin. Which again reminds ...

— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... shilling book, and Scott, nothing loath, extended his project. Most of his spare time during 1800 and 1801 was spent on it; and besides corresponding with the man who 'fished this murex up,' Bishop Percy, he entered into literary relations with Joseph Ritson. Even Ritson's waspish character seems to have been softened by Scott's courtesy, and perhaps even more by the joint facts that he had as yet attained no literary reputation, and neither at this nor at any other time gave himself literary airs. He also made the acquaintance of George Ellis, who became a warm and ...

— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... about the room as if he had no care in the world. He hummed snatches of song. Mr. Jones raised his waspish eyebrows, at the sound. The secretary got down on his knees before an old leather trunk, and, rummaging in there, brought out a small looking-glass. He fell to examining his physiognomy ...

— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... to alleviate that drawback. She fancied herself as cold, hard, analytical, and ruthless; actually she was waspish, arrogant, overbearing, and treacherous. What she considered in herself to be scientific detachment was really an isolation born of fear and distrust of ...

— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett

... respect in works devoted to the history of science. But he is perhaps chiefly remembered as the savant whom Frederick the Great attracted to his court during a period of aloofness from the scintillating Voltaire, and who consequently became a writhing target for the jealous ridicule of that waspish wit. Poor Maupertuis, unhappy in his exit from life, would appear to have been restless after it, for his ghost is averred to have stalked in the hall of the Academy of Berlin, and to have been seen by a brother professor there, the remarkable phenomenon being solemnly recorded in the Transactions ...

— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... one in which she had studied; but Mr. Pericles defeated her by constantly sending to her for advice concerning the economies of the feast. Nevertheless, she exhibited good pretensions to social queendom, both personal and practical; and if Freshfield Sumner, instead of his crisp waspish comments on people and things, had seconded her by keeping up a two-minutes' flow of talk from time to time, she might have thought that Lady Gosstre was only luckier than ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

Words linked to "Waspish" : bristly, splenetic, prickly, ill-natured