a. [f. QUARREL sb.3 + -SOME.]
1. Inclined to quarrel; given to, or characterized by, quarrelling. † Const. at.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., I. ii. 13. My Mr is growne quarrelsome.
1616. W. Sclater, Serm., 10. Weigh well how … quarrelsome at the liues of magistrates the people are.
a. 1639. W. Whateley, Prototypes, I. xvi. (1640), 161. A quarrelsome fellow, still brawling and falling out.
1667. Anne Wyndham, King’s Concealm., 36. This quarrelsom Gossipping was a most seasonable diversion.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, V. ix. Men who are ill-natured and quarrelsome when they are drunk.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xii. The wine rendered me loquacious, disputatious and quarrelsome.
1879. Mrs. L. G. Séguin, Black Forest, viii. 115. The lords of Windeck, a family dating from the tenth century, were of a specially quarrelsome temper.
2. Offensive, disagreeable. nonce-use.
1825. Coleridge, Aids Refl., App. i. (1836), 35. Technical terms, hard to be remembered, and alike quarrelsome to the ear and the tongue.
Hence Quarrelsomely adv.
1755. in Johnson.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, III. 132. In an aggressively loud voice, as if he were quarrelsomely anxious to be overheard.
1880. Mrs. Parr, Adam & Eve, II. vii. 147. The crowd grew … quarrelsomely drunk.
