Elizabeth Taylor †1975
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One of the first cited uses of tetchy occurs in William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1596). Etymologists are not certain how the word came about, but some have suggested that it derives from tetch, an obsolete noun meaning "habit." The similarity both in meaning and pronunciation to touchy might lead you to conclude that tetchy is related to that word, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest such a connection. The adjectives teched and tetched, meaning "mentally unbalanced," are variations of touched, and are probably also unrelated to tetchy.
Examples of tetchy in a Sentence
Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 29 June 2024
Janet has a boyfriend on the premises, too: a terse, tetchy older fellow named Wayne (Will Patton), who mostly keeps to himself.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 14 June 2024
Laying bright, bracing guitars over taut, tetchy, minimalist drums and bass, their sound brings to mind Wire and the very earliest Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen.
—Jon Dolan, Rolling Stone, 14 June 2024
Wentz had already had a tetchy relationship with a previous high-profile backup, Nick Foles, and Hurts was no sure thing: in college, at Alabama, he’d been benched in the middle of the national championship game in favor of Tua Tagovailoa, who was seen as a more dynamic, high-upside prospect.
—Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2023
His years of watching films and writing about them had given him a tetchy sort of autonomy.
—Rachel Cusk, Harper's Magazine, 10 Sep. 2023
But an encounter on the road with a couple of hooligans leads instead to a courtroom in Detroit, where Raylan gives testimony and Willa is chastised by tetchy Judge Alvin Guy (Keith David, sonorous as always) for laughing at cat videos on her phone.
—Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2023
In practice, the technology is tetchy.
—Tatum Hunter, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Mar. 2023
The administration has at times had a tetchy relationship with the company after excluding it from an event held to promote EVs.
—Russ Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tetchy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Tetchy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tetchy. Accessed 15 Jul. 2024.
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