vixenish, a.
(ˈvɪks(ə)nɪʃ)
[f. prec. + -ish1.]
1. Resembling a vixen in disposition; cross, ill-tempered, snappish.
| 1828 Miss Mitford Village Ser. iii. 109 My friend Daphne, the vixenish pug. 1841 Lever C. O'Malley lxvii, Others are married and have vixenish wives. 1880 M. E. Braddon Just as I am xlv, He could hardly endure existence in the house that held his vixenish sisters. |
| Comb. 1837 Dickens Pickw. xlvi, Two small vixenish looking ladies. |
2. Characteristic of, appropriate to, a vixen.
| 1838 Dickens O. Twist iv, A short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. 1865 Dublin Univ. Mag. I. 261 She..rang the bell with vixenish violence. 1889 Sat. Rev. 23 Feb. 208/2 The trashy verbiage, the vixenish tattle,..to which they are treated. |
Hence
ˈvixenishness.
| 1820 Examiner No. 651. 633/1 Madge is too apt to think that vixenishness and virtue go together. 1865 Mrs. Whitney Gayworthys I. 117 She would never sharpen or narrow to vixenishness. |