Link Centre Dictionary

touchy

UK/ˈtʌt͡ʃi/ US/ˈtʌtʃi/ fairly common informal

adjective

1.
2.

irritable and looking for trouble

  • “too touchy to make judicious decisions”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

A variant of earlier tetchy (“cranky, easily annoyed, difficult to handle”), under influence from some senses of touch (“affect, disturb”) and simulating touch + -y.

Related words

Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.