Definition of "peevishly"

"See / Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, / "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: / 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, / Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XI

His uncles peevishly claimed the paper.

1938, Evelyn Waugh, Scoop, book I, ch. 2,1

Seated in a kitchen chair, and rasping at his scorched shoulders, he said peevishly, "By ginger, it gives a man the willies, left alone in a place like this all day."

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, page 78