adj, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective

1. 1
   mildly hungry British, colloquial

   "After that run, I'm feeling a bit peckish."

2. 2
   irritable; crotchety colloquial

Adjective

1. 1
   easily irritated or annoyed wordnet
2. 2
   somewhat hungry wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

crankyemptyfamishedfastingfractioushungering

Example

More examples

"Tom was feeling peckish, so he rang room service and ordered a hamburger."

Etymology

From peck (verb) + -ish. From late 18th century.

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