Re: This has got too far from Ransome-so what's new


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Posted by John Nichols on October 19, 2003 at 21:23:05 from 165.91.196.181 user Mcneacail.

In Reply to: Re: This has got too far from Ransome-so what's new posted by Peter Ceresole on October 19, 2003 at 18:02:20:

Stroppy from the OED: dates from 1951
colloq.

(strp) [? abbrev. of OBSTREPEROUS a. with altered stem-vowel.]

Bad-tempered, rebellious, awkward, obstreperous, unruly. Hence stroppiness.

Dates of references
1983
1977
1973
1969
1968
1964
1951


1951 H. HASTINGS Seagulls over Sorrento II. i, in Plays of Year 1950 IV. 76 There ain't nothing clever about answering him back and being stroppy. 1964 J. BURKE Hard Day's Night iv. 80 ‘Have you got a licence for it?’ ‘Oh, don't be so stroppy.’ 1968 [see SHIT n. 1g]. 1969 New Statesman 31 Oct. 633/3 It anyhow seems to me (perhaps out of stroppiness) that the good toys aren't all necessarily the ones that teach how to count or measure. 1973 J. WAINWRIGHT Devil you Don't 116 All that balls about ‘with respect’... Honesty. Stroppiness. 1977 Guardian Weekly 27 Feb. 5/4 Those who didn't know him well..missed the stroppy radicalism of his spirit. 1983 Listener 14 Apr. 37/1 Susan, on the other hand, is streetwise and stroppy.

It means more than feisty, my dog is feisty - but my drunk brother is stroppy to the barman, and gets kicked out of the bar.

Noddy Holder was stroppy.



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