stroppy
/ˈstrɒpi
/adjective (stroppier, stroppiest) British informal
Bad-tempered and argumentative: Patricia was getting stroppy...
- Watch out for irritability, being more stroppy with other people and not sleeping very well.
- ‘Hawick people are very stroppy,’ says Barnes.
- Every time I had some form of prize or something he really got very stroppy about it.
Synonyms
bad-tempered, ill-tempered, irritable, grumpy, cantankerous, truculent, sulky, sullen, awkward, uncooperative, unhelpful, recalcitrant, refractory, difficult, perverse, contrary, confrontational, argumentative, quarrelsome, obstreperous, choleric;
Scottish thrawn
informal pig-headed, cussed
British informal shirty, ratty, narky, bolshie, bloody-minded
North American informal balky, scrappy
archaic contumacious, froward
rare contrarious
Derivatives
stroppily
- I exclaimed, and flounced stroppily to my desk.
- Unlike other systems that stroppily tell you to make a U-turn, it calmly and almost invisibly replots the route.
- I re-did the vocal a week later, if only to make a point of starting as stroppily as I intended to continue.
stroppiness
- The pressure of the festive season, combined with raging hormones, has raised my reputation for stroppiness to an unprecedented high.
- A pantomime of stroppiness ensued, complete with petted lip.
- Days later the Scotsman took a pot shot at Sands' stroppiness while attending an awards ceremony.
Origin
1950s: perhaps an abbreviation of obstreperous.
Rhymes
- self-referentiality
- self-referentially
- self-reflection
- self-reflective
- self-reflexive
- self-regard
- self-regarding
- self-regulating
- self-regulation
- self-regulatory
- self-reliance
- self-reliant
- self-reliantly
- self-renewal
- self-renunciation
- self-report
- self-reproach
- self-reproachful
- self-respect
- self-respecting
- self-restrained
- self-restraint
- self-revealing
- self-revelation
- self-revelatory