Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Peevish; testy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective See techy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Easily annoyed or irritated; peevish, testy or irascible

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective easily irritated or annoyed

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from Middle English tache, teche, blemish (influenced by touchy), from Old French tache, teche, from Vulgar Latin *tacca, from Gothic taikns, sign; see deik- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1592, teachie, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene iii, line 32.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Wonder about the origin... Something similar to itchy, I presume.

    December 16, 2008

  • From the verb 'tetch', a variant of the Yiddish 'kvetch'.

    December 16, 2008