FRETFUL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fretful mean? 

• FRETFUL (adjective)
  The adjective FRETFUL has 2 senses:

1. nervous and unable to relax

2. habitually complaining

  Familiarity information: FRETFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FRETFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Nervous and unable to relax

Synonyms:

antsy; fidgety; fretful; itchy

Context example:

a restless child

Similar:

tense (in or of a state of physical or nervous tension)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Habitually complaining

Synonyms:

fretful; querulous; whiney; whiny

Context example:

a whiny child

Similar:

complaining; complaintive (expressing pain or dissatisfaction of resentment)

Derivation:

fretfulness (an irritable petulant feeling)

 Context examples 

I am quite a fretful porcupine.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You, who had seen all the fretful selfishness of my latter days; who had known all the murmurings of my heart!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

"What a trying world it is!" said Jo, rumpling up her hair in a fretful way.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mrs. Gummidge's was rather a fretful disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

One discovered that money couldn't keep shame and sorrow out of rich people's houses, another that, though she was poor, she was a great deal happier, with her youth, health, and good spirits, than a certain fretful, feeble old lady who couldn't enjoy her comforts, a third that, disagreeable as it was to help get dinner, it was harder still to go begging for it and the fourth, that even carnelian rings were not so valuable as good behavior.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)