Knappish

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Peevish; snappish. obsolete

    "[H]e reiected the Dukes requeſt with many ſpitefull and knappiſhe wordes, which ſo wounded the Dukes hart with hatred and miſtruſt, that he could neuer after endure to looke right on king Richard, but euer feared hys owne lyfe, […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
peevish

Example

More examples

"[H]e reiected the Dukes requeſt with many ſpitefull and knappiſhe wordes, which ſo wounded the Dukes hart with hatred and miſtruſt, that he could neuer after endure to looke right on king Richard, but euer feared hys owne lyfe, […]"

Etymology

From knap (“to strike”) + -ish.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.