petulant

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French pétulant and partly borrowed from Latin petulāns (“impudent, insolent, immodest, wanton”).^[2][3][4] The French adjective meant lively in the 14th century and impudent by 1552.^[2] The Latin word probably represents the present participle of an unattested verb *petulō, formed from petō (“to seek, aim at, attack”) with the ending seen in postulō;^[2][5][6][7] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take it straight from the verb.^[8][9] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *pet- (“to rush, to fly”).^[8][9] Barnhart adds that petulant may in some cases have been formed as the adjective to the earlier noun petulancy (1559).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Immodest or forward in speech or behaviour, wanton: 1538, in a Good Friday sermon by Bishop John Longland.^[2] Barnhart's first record is from 1599, in Marston's The Scourge of Villainy,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1598^[4] and Etymonline the 1590s.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The early senses followed the Latin: "wanton, lascivious" from 1538 and "impudent, insolent, rude" from 1598, in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour; both are now obsolete or rare.^[2][10] Johnson (1755) still defined the word as "saucy; perverse" and "wanton".^[11] The modern sense, "showing peevish impatience, especially over trifles", is found neither in Latin nor in French;^[2] the OED's first record is Johnson's own Dictionary, under peevish (1755),^[2] while Etymonline and Barnhart date it to 1775.^[8][3] The OED, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged put the change down to the influence of pet "a fit of peevishness",^[2][8][4] and Weekley and the Oxford Dictionary of English to association with pettish.^[7][12] As a noun, a petulant person, the word is recorded from 1682, in Shadwell's The Lancashire Witches.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1538 – immodest, forward, wanton (now obsolete).^[2]
• 1598 – impudent, insolent, rude (now obsolete).^[2][4]
• 1682 – noun, a petulant person.^[2][4]
• 1755 – peevishly impatient or irritable, especially over trivial matters.^[2] Etymonline and Barnhart date this sense to 1775.^[8][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Showing peevish impatience or bad temper, especially over small things; childishly sulky: The boy gave a petulant shrug and turned back to his game.^{[13][4][2][9]}
2. (now rare) Insolent or contemptuous in speech or behaviour.^[9][10][2]
3. (obsolete, 1538–1859) Immodest or wanton.^[2][10][11]

Noun

1. A petulant person.^[4][2][10]

Word family

• petulance
• petulantly
• unpetulant

Related words

• petulancy
• pet
• pettish
• petition
• compete
• repeat
• feather

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins