Word.ws English Dictionary

temperish

temperish adjective: peevish; cross.

Adjective

temperish (comparative more temperish, superlative most temperish)

  1. Peevish; cross.
    • If our reaction is temperish, Great Britain gets it five minutes after she sends her message.1931, Jennie Grace Walker, Habits and Skills, page 137
    • The day Barry left, Pugin made a temperish comment in his diary: 'The present condition of the architecture is deplorable. Truth reduced to the position of an interesting but rare and curious relic.'2016, Caroline Shenton, Mr Barry's War
  2. Having a bad-tempered disposition; moody or volatile.
    • It is discerned that a child is temperish, or so inclined; the intention, of course, is to avert the current of this coming tide.1898, John B. Small, The Human Heart Illustrated by Nine Figures of the Heart
    • His whole person was noticeable, too – the wide, ridgy shoulders, tumbling fair hair and queer, light eyes, temperish, pouted mouth and heavy jaw.1931, Dorothy Leigh Sayers, The Five Red Herrings

Examples of temperish in a sentence

  • As a general rule he had five simple emotion gears: he was either hungry, sleepy, curious, frightened, or temperish .2017, Robert Edmond Alter, Shovel Nose and the Gator Grabbers:
  • Emilia Trask had money but she had a temperish look.1931, Lucy Maud Montgomery, A Tangled Web:

Forms of temperish

comparativemore temperish
superlativemost temperish

Origin of temperish

From temper + -ish.

Questions about temperish

What does temperish mean?
Temperish means peevish; cross.
How do you use temperish in a sentence?
As a general rule he had five simple emotion gears: he was either hungry, sleepy, curious, frightened, or temperish .
What part of speech is temperish?
Temperish is an adjective.

Words near temperish in the dictionary

  1. temperers
  2. temperest
  3. tempereth
  4. tempering
  5. temperings
  6. temperish
  7. temperless
  8. Temperley
  9. temperment
  10. tempermental
  11. temperments

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: temperish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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