Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character of being touchy; peevishness; irritability; irascibility.

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

  • noun The quality or state of being touchy; peevishness; irritability; irascibility.

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

  • noun the property of being touchy

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

  • noun feeling easily irritated

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

touchy +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • There is a disease called "touchiness" -- a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world.

    Beautiful Thoughts Henry Drummond 1874

  • "touchiness" -- a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world.

    The Greatest Thing In the World and Other Addresses Henry Drummond 1874

  • Perhaps it's the subject - people seem to get rather touchy about it, a convenient kind of touchiness though.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2008

  • The feud with Charles Kean was kept up to the end; Punch speaks of his "touchiness," and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw.

    Mr. Punch`s history of modern England, Volume I -- 1841-1857 Charles Larcom 1921

  • He liked that absence of all "touchiness" from her, and felt that a man could rest comfortably on her good breeding.

    In the Wilderness Robert Smythe Hichens 1907

  • Out of this temperament has grown the self-consciousness, the uneasy vanity, the "touchiness" which has made Germany of late years the despair of the diplomats all over the world.

    Germany and the Germans From an American Point of View Price Collier 1886

  • "touchiness" of "the Republican" -- so the American novelist is styled -- as evinced by the indignation of the latter at the conduct of Lord Nugent.

    James Fenimore Cooper American Men of Letters Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury 1876

  • This is a case which, because it is so tightly bound up with over-touchiness and emotionalism on both sides, simply defies the rigorous, rational application of the law.

    Law can be influenced by religion | Jonathan Chaplin 2011

  • So, under such circumstances, the writer finds himself 'twixt the devil and the deep sea; on the one hand the touchiness of the editor, on the other the loss of the manuscript.

    EDITORIAL CRIMES – A PROTEST 2010

  • She liked the touchiness and felt flattered of how proud he seemed of her.

    Shore Thing Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi 2011

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