Termagant

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈtɜːməɡənt/

Origin

From Termagant.

Full definition of termagant

Noun

1. A quarrelsome, scolding woman, especially one who is old and shrewish.
• 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1,... Make feeble ladies, in their works,
  To fight like termagants and Turks; ...
• 1907, Isaac Flagg, Plato: the Apology and Crito, p. 196.:The name of Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, has become proverbial for a termagant.
• 1970, Robertson Davies, Fifth Business:Easier divorce, equal pay for equal work as between men and women, no discrimination between the sexes in employment – these were her causes, and in promoting them she was no comic-strip feminist termagant, but reasonable, logical, and untiring.
2. (obsolete) A boisterous, brawling, turbulent person, whether male or female.
• Bale (1543)This terrible termagant, this Nero, this Pharaoh.
• MacaulayThe slave of an imperious and reckless termagant.

Synonyms

• (quarrelsome woman) shrew, virago

Adjective

1. Quarrelsome and scolding or censorious; shrewish.
• 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:These bishops with their termagant wives throw the book at us and say believe because I demand belief and by God I will burn or hang and quarter you if you do not.