a. [f. FRACTION (sense 3), after captious, etc.
The original sense seems to have been ‘disposed to make breaches, factious’; the more trivial use now current may be due to association with FRATCH.]
Refractory, unruly; now chiefly, cross, fretful, peevish; esp. of children.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 353. Having had an account how mutinous and fractious they had been.
1776. Foote, Capuchin, III. Wks. 1799, II. 399. The young slut is so headstrong and fractious, that my old friend will find it out of his power, if she continues obstinate, to make her comply.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., II. 30. I discovered that there were cabals breaking out in the company, headed by the clown, who you may recollect was a terribly peevish, fractious fellow, and always in ill-humor.
1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, lxi. (1879), 510. She was sure baby would be getting so very fractious.
1857. Buckle, Civilisation, vii. 402. The fractious and disloyal conduct of many of the hierarchy must have tended to alienate the regard of the sovereign, as it had already cost them the affection of the people.
1880. L. Wallace, Ben-Hur, I. ix. 46. Men struggling doubtfully with fractious cows and frightened sheep.
transf. 1821. Coleridge, in Blackw. Mag., X. Oct., 261. The fractious noise of the dashing of a lake on its border, compared with the swell of the sea on a calm evening.
Hence Fractiously adv.; Fractiousness.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Fractiousness. Ibid. (1736, folio), Fractiously.
1753. Miss Collier, Art Torment., 159. She will … ask your pardon, instead of your asking hers, for having indulged your own fractiousness, and for having abused her for nothing.
1840. Polson, Law & L., II. 166. Although the judge is not guilty of those violent excesses which have disgraced some who have worn the ermine, still his fractiousness, and his want of patience and self-controul, render him almost equally disliked.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 54. The treason of Russell is to be attributed partly to fractiousness.
1878. Mrs. H. Wood, Pomeroy Abb., I. 159. ‘How stupid you are, Bridget!’ she fractiously said: for when vexed with ourselved, it is satisfactory to find a scape-goat to pitch upon.
