Sunday, February 25, 2018

Interesting words: Querulous

Word: Querulous
Pronunciation: Qwer - yeh - lus
Etymology:  Per the Online Etymology Dictionary, querulous comes from Old French querelos which meant "quarrelsome, argumentative" and earlier from Latin querulus "full of complaints".

Definition:  Querulous, according to Merriam Webster, means "habitually complaining" particularly by whining.
Why use it?  I think we all know someone who is querulous.  At least, with the word, we can describe their annoying behavior precisely.  While there are many words that have similar meanings (e.g. whiny, complaining) querulous captures a set of behaviors that tend to go together. 
Frequency of use: About 1 in 3.1 million words.


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