17 May 2018

termagant

[tur-muh-guh nt]

noun

1. a violent, turbulent, or brawling woman.
2. (initial capital letter) a mythical deity popularly believed in the Middle Ages to be worshiped by the Muslims and introduced into the morality play as a violent, overbearing personage in long robes.
adjective
3. violent; turbulent; brawling; shrewish.

Origin of termagant

Middle English, Old French

1175-1225; Middle English Termagaunt, earlier Tervagaunt, alteration of Old French Tervagan name of the imaginary deity

Related forms

termagantly, adverb

Synonyms

1. shrew, virago, harridan, scold.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for termagant

Historical Examples

His wife is a shrew, a termagant, who embitters every hour of his existence.
The Lion’s Skin
Rafael Sabatini

The child must not be suffered to grow up into a termagant —you will admit that, I hope?
Brother Copas
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

This bride was a canting hypocrite of sixty-three, covetous, and a termagant.
The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck
Baron Trenck

She seemed to be a sort of termagant, and she said nobody said that about her unless you told them.
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919
Various

There are two claimants on the Milanese, then; the Spanish termagant, and he?
History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.)
Thomas Carlyle

Not to a woman; but I’m sometimes forced to do so to a termagant.
The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector
William Carleton

And I was the termagant who must have put it there, though I have no memory of doing so.
The Prairie Child
Arthur Stringer

It was as if Elizabeth had put herself into the situation of a termagant wife.
The Town
Leigh Hunt

She may be a fool—she may be a termagant —she may be what you please—but—but she has money.
The Cock and Anchor
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Why, what a bloody-minded, inveterate, termagant strumpet have I been plagued with!
Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway

Anagram

get mantra
rat magnet
anger Matt
a tram gent

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Today’s quote

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

– William Faulkner

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On this day

17 May – International Day Against Homophobia.

17 May 2000 – Thomas Blanton Jr and Bobby Frank Cherry, former Ku Klux Klan members, are arrested and charged with murder for the 1963 bombing of a church in Alabama which killed four girls. The two men were sentenced to life in prison.

17 May 2012 – Disco singer, Donna Summer dies from lung cancer. She was born on 31 December 1948.