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A.Word.A.Day--tetchy

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tetchy also techy (TECH-ee) adjective

Peevish; testy.

[Probably from Middle English tache, teche, blemish, from Old French tache, teche, from Vulgar Latin *tacca, from Gothic taikns, sign.]

"On July 8th, after long speculation that Mr Newhouse is getting more tetchy about the reported $1m a month that the magazine loses, Ms Brown announced her resignation as editor." AprAes Tina, The Economist, 11 Jul 1998.

Words week's theme: Words that describe types of persons.

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“Overall, the universe’s apostrophe store stays in balance. It seems our linguistic world was intelligently designed -- for every gratuitous apostrophe there’s an instance where it’s omitted.”

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