different between titchy vs tetchy

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?t?i/
• Rhymes: -?t?i

Etymology 1

From titch (“small person”), from the stage name Little Tich.

Adjective

titchy (comparative titchier, superlative titchiest)

1. (informal) Tiny, very small.
   • 1984, Roald Dahl, Boy, page 43:

     Let's 'ave a look at some of them titchy ones.

   • 2014, Jonathan Gash, The Tartan Ringers (?ISBN)

     'Haven't you got little feet?' I said. 'Has everybody got titchy plates in Belgium?'

Etymology 2

Probably related to touchy, like titch (“touch”) is related to touch.

Adjective

titchy (comparative titchier, superlative titchiest)

1. Touchy, irritated.
   • 1991, Martin Harry Greenberg, Rosalind M. Greenberg, Horse Fantastic (?ISBN):

     Bali was the quiet one, though that wasn't saying he was gentle-—he had plenty of spirit. Zan was the one you had to watch. He'd snake his head out if you walked by his stall, and get titchy if he thought you owed him a carrot or a bit of apple.

   • 2013, Robyn Davidson, Tracks: One Woman's Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback (?ISBN):

     He got titchy in return because, no doubt, he couldn't understand why anyone would have camels if they didn't work them; which was quite reasonable but didn't take into account the fact that they were adored pets rather than beasts of burden,...

   • 2017, Kass Harker, Into Another Dimension (?ISBN):

     “What does that do?” Gemma asked. “Just push it, Gem. Then you'll see,” said Edward, getting titchy at his sister. Gemma pushed down on the spongy pad and before she knew what was happening,

Anagrams

• Chitty, chitty

English

Etymology

Perhaps coined by Shakespeare. First use in print in 1592 in the form teachie in Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene iii, line 32.It is uncertain what inspired Shakespeare's or possible other prior use. According to some etymologists, from the obsolete noun tetch (“habit”). According to others, from a variant of Scots tache (“blotch, fault”). According to others, from Middle English tatch, tache, tecche, teche (“blemish”), influenced by touchy, from Old French tache, teche (Modern French tache), from Vulgar Latin *tacca, from Gothic ???????????????????????? (taikns, “sign”) (compare Old English t?cn (“sign, token”), Modern English token), from Proto-Indo-European *dey?-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?t?i/

Adjective

tetchy (comparative tetchier, superlative tetchiest)

1. Easily annoyed or irritated; peevish, testy or irascible.
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliette, Act I, Scene iii, lines 30–32, (Nurse speaking, spelling modernized):

     When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple

     Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,

     To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!

   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act IV, Scene 4,^[1]

     A grievous burthen was thy birth to me;

     Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

   • 1605, Anthony Munday (translator), The Dumbe Diuine Speaker by Giacomo Affinati d’Acuto Romano, London: William Leake, Chapter 6, p. 58,^[2]

     Our hart is so narrowly limited that (by euery little distaste) we are strangely altered, and being in this teasty tetchy way, presently we let flye foorth much vnseemelines.

   • 1792, Thomas Holcroft, The Road to Ruin, Dublin: J. Bragg, Act 5, p. 65,^[3]

     I warrant, sir, he is, as you say, a very precise acrimonious person—A tetchy repugnant kind of old gentleman.

   • 1887, Bret Harte, Devil’s Ford in A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready and Devil’s Ford, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 4, p. 238,^[4]

     They’re good boys, as I said afore; but they’re quick and tetchy—George, being the youngest, nat’rally is the tetchiest.

   • 1920, H. G. Wells, Russia in the Shadows, London: Hodder & Stoughton, Chapter 6,^[5]

     […] the commonplace Communist simply loses his temper if you venture to doubt whether everything is being done in precisely the best and most intelligent way under the new régime. He is like a tetchy housewife who wants you to recognise that everything is in perfect order in the middle of an eviction.

Related terms

• tetchily
• tetchiness

Translations

References

Anagrams

• chetty