termagant

See also Termagant

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Termagant.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈtɜːməɡənt/

Noun

termagant (plural termagants)

1. A quarrelsome, scolding woman, especially one who is old and shrewish.
   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, canto 2

     [...] Make feeble ladies, in their works, / To fight like termagants and Turks; [...]

   • 1907, Isaac Flagg, Plato: the Apology and Crito, p. 196.:

     The name of Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, has become proverbial for a termagant.

   • 1970, Robertson Davies, Fifth Business:

     Easier divorce, equal pay for equal work as between men and women, no discrimination between the sexes in employment – these were her causes, and in promoting them she was no comic-strip feminist termagant, but reasonable, logical, and untiring.

2. (obsolete) A boisterous, brawling, turbulent person, whether male or female.
   • Bale (1543)

     This terrible termagant, this Nero, this Pharaoh.

   • Macaulay

     The slave of an imperious and reckless termagant.

Translations

a quarrelsome, scolding woman, especially old and shrewd

• Russian: грубая/сварливая женщина (grúbaja/svarlívaja žénščina)f, мегера (ru) (megéra) f

Synonyms

• (quarrelsome woman): shrew, virago

Adjective

termagant (comparative more termagant, superlative most termagant)

1. Quarrelsome and scolding or censorious; shrewish.
   • 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:

     These bishops with their termagant wives throw the book at us and say believe because I demand belief and by God I will burn or hang and quarter you if you do not.