Dictionary Entry

fretful

Part of SpeechadjectivePronunciation/ˈfɹɛtfəl/Used In Literature ↓

Irritable, bad-tempered, grumpy or peevish.

Origin

Origin details are still being enriched for this entry.

Common Phrases

. fretfulchild fretfulporcupine fretfulplagiary fretfulbaby fretfulfretful sir

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Synonyms

Antonyms

No antonyms yet.

Related Words

Poetry examples for “fretful”

Excerpts from the ReadingWillow English Library collection.

Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise;
Yet plays the fool before she dies.

Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful

Or errant fancies fond, that still
To fretful motions prompt the will,
Repose upon effect and cause,

And fill me with rare sense of things remote
From this harsh life of fretful nights and days?
I cannot answer but, whate’er it be,

The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

Breathed many times and spent,
Was fretful with a whispering discontent,
And questioning me, importuning me to tell

Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains

Hissed from the theatre the "other day,"
As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse,
And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse.

Laborious, persevering, serious, firm,--
For this, thy track across the fretful foam

And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,
And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees
That round and round the linden blossoms play;