quarrelsome

Etymology

It is formed from English quarrel² + -some.^[2][3][4][5] The noun is from Old French querele (“dispute, controversy”) and directly Latin querella (“complaint, accusation”), from queror (“to complain, lament”).^[3] The Oxford English Dictionary compares the earlier adjectives quarrelling, quarrellous and querulous.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Inclined to quarrel, or inclined to complain: 1576, in J. Daniel's translation of J. Pérez, Excelent Comfort.^[2] Other dictionaries date it later: Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1582, the Shorter Oxford to the late 16th century, Etymonline to the 1590s and Dictionary.com to 1590–1600.^[6][4][3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word replaced quarrellous, recorded from about 1400 and now obsolete.^[3] Its early use with at for "inclined to complain" has died out.^[2] Johnson (1755) explained it as inclined to brawls, irascible and petulant, quoting Bacon on "cholerick and quarrelsome persons" who draw others into their disputes.^[7] Coleridge's use of it in 1825 for "offensive, disagreeable" remained a single record.^[2] In Scots it could mean faultfinding, given to contradiction, or fond of going to law.^[8]

Timeline

• 1576 – inclined to quarrel; with at, inclined to complain.^[2]
• 1825 – offensive, disagreeable (obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Inclined to quarrel; contentious, argumentative: The quarrelsome neighbours fell out again over the fence.^[9][6][2]
2. Marked by quarrelling: a quarrelsome meeting.^[9][2]
3. (Scotland) Faultfinding; litigious.^[8]

Word family

• quarrelsomely
• quarrelsomeness
• unquarrelsome

Related words

• quarrel
• querulous

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt