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FRACTIOUS
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Dictionary entry overview: What does fractious mean?
• FRACTIOUS (adjective)
The adjective FRACTIOUS has 3 senses:
1. stubbornly resistant to authority or control
2. easily irritated or annoyed
3. unpredictably difficult in operation; likely to be troublesome
Familiarity information: FRACTIOUS used as an adjective is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Stubbornly resistant to authority or control
Synonyms:
fractious; recalcitrant; refractory
Context example:
a refractory child
Similar:
disobedient (not obeying or complying with commands of those in authority)
Derivation:
fractiousness (the trait of being prone to disobedience and lack of discipline)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Easily irritated or annoyed
Synonyms:
cranky; fractious; irritable; nettlesome; peckish; peevish; pettish; petulant; scratchy; techy; testy; tetchy
Context example:
not the least nettlesome of his countrymen
Similar:
ill-natured (having an irritable and unpleasant disposition)
Derivation:
fractiousness (the trait of being prone to disobedience and lack of discipline)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Unpredictably difficult in operation; likely to be troublesome
Context example:
fractious components of a communication system
Similar:
difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)
Context examples
So when she got a situation, said Mr. Omer, to keep a fractious old lady company, they didn't very well agree, and she didn't stop.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
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