tetchy

Etymology

Uncertain, first attested as teachie in the 1597 first quarto versions of Romeo and Juliet and Richard III. Perhaps coined by Shakespeare. Also variously derived from English tetch (“tantrum, fit of anger”); from Scots tache (“blotch, fault”); from Middle English tatch (“blemish”) &c. under influence from touchy, in turn derived from Old French tache, from proposed Vulgar Latin *tacca, from Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌹𐌺𐌽𐍃 (taikns, “sign”), from proposed Proto-Indo-European *deyḱ-.

adj

1. Synonym of touchy: easily annoyed or irritated, peevish, testy, irascible; also (figurative) extremely sensitive, difficult to manage, use, or work.
   Our hart is so narrowly limited that (by euery little distaste) we are strangely altered, and being in this teasty tetchy way, presently we let flye foorth much vnseemelines. 1605, “Chapter 6”, in Anthony Munday, transl., The Dumbe Diuine Speaker, London: William Leake, translation of original by Giacomo Affinati d’Acuto Romano, page 58
   I warrant, sir, he is, as you say, a very precise acrimonious person—A tetchy repugnant kind of old gentleman. 1792, Thomas Holcroft, edited by J. Bragg, The Road to Ruin, Dublin, act 5, page 65
   They’re good boys, as I said afore; but they’re quick and tetchy—George, being the youngest, nat’rally is the tetchiest. 1887, Bret Harte, A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready and Devil’s Ford, Devil’s Ford, page 238
   […] the commonplace Communist simply loses his temper if you venture to doubt whether everything is being done in precisely the best and most intelligent way under the new régime. He is like a tetchy housewife who wants you to recognise that everything is in perfect order in the middle of an eviction. 1920, H. G. Wells, “Chapter 6”, in Russia in the Shadows