pet peeve

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

pet peeve (plural pet peeves)

1. (colloquial) Something that is personally annoying; a personal dislike.

   Forgetting to finish a sentence with a period is one of my pet peeves.

   • 1970s, George Carlin, stand-up routine

     I don’t have pet peeves; I have major, psychotic hatreds.

Synonyms

• bugbear
• pet hate

Translations

something that is personally annoying; a personal dislike

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 討厭的事情 / 讨厌的事情 (tǎoyàn de shìqíng)

• Danish: yndlingsaversion c
• Finnish: inhokki (fi)
• French: bête noire (fr) f
• German: Hauptärgernis n, Lieblingsärgernis n, Lieblingsbeschwerde f, persönliche Abneigung f
• Hebrew: שנאת מחמד (he)
• Hungarian: bögyében lévő dolog, leginkább bosszantó/​idegesítő/irritáló dolog, vörös posztó (literally “red rag”), (denouncing them) előszeretettel ostorozott hiányosság, előszeretettel (újra meg újra) (fel)emlegetett bosszúság
• Italian: piccolo cruccio (it) m
• Polish: idiosynkrazja (pl) f
• Portuguese: ódio de estimação m, implicância (pt) f, birra (pt) f, neura f
• Russian: пунктик (ru) (punktik), любимая мозоль (ru) (ljubimaja mozolʹ)
• Spanish: molestia favorita f
• Turkish: bam teli (tr)
• Welsh: cas beth m

See also

• get on one's nerves
• peeved
• push someone's buttons
• red rag

Further reading

• “pet peeve”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “pet peeve”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “pet peeve”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “pet peeve” (US) / “pet peeve” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.