``I know that, to be sure,''assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled,``but I am determined to be peevish after my long day's botheration.

Chapter21The discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her mother.

A person of an obliging disposition gives a peevish answer: But he has the toothache, or has not dined.

Betwixt you and me, Mas'r Davy--and you, ma'am--wen Mrs. Gummidge takes to wimicking,'--our old country word for crying,--'she's liable to be considered to be, by them as didn't know the old 'un, peevish-like.

Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room.

They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren.

Each of the 14 chapters deals with one aspect of the novels — ‘No woman had ever held this man’ defends Bond's attitude to and treatment of women: “Bond's habitual attitude to a girl is protective, not dominating or combative”; ‘Damnably clear grey eyes’ describes M., the head of SIS: “a peevish, priggish old monster”; ‘A glint of red’ is about the villains, who have in common only physical largeness and angry eyes; and so forth.

His biographer Ben Pimlott characterizes Dalton as peevish, irascible, given to poor judgment, and lacking administrative talent.

The Liberal Democrats claimed it raised "serious questions" and Chris Huhne said showed "inept and peevish behaviour that leaves Gordon Brown's reputation for honest dealing with our EU partners hanging by a thread".