Shrewishness

Shrewishness

See also Irascibility.

Shyness (See TIMIDITY.)

Similarity (See TWINS.)

Sinfulness (See WICKEDNESS.)

Caudle, Mrs. Margaret

nagging, complaining wife. [Br. Lit.: The Curtain Lectures, Walsh Modem, 90]

Dollallolla, Queen

even King Arthur feared his uxorial virago. [Br. Lit: Tom Thumb the Great]

farmer’s wife

makes hell too hot even for the devil, who sends her back home. [Am. Balladry: “The Devil and the Farmer’s Wife”]

Frome, Zenobia (Zeena)

Ethan Frome’s hypochondriacal, nag ging, belittling wife. [Am. Lit.: Ethan Frome]

Galatea

19th-century version: nags Pygmalion. [Aust. Operetta: von Suppé, Beautiful Galatea, Westerman, 285]

Gargery, Mrs.

vixenish wife; keeps husband in thrall. [Br. Lit.: Great Expectations]

Katherine

“intolerably curst and shrewd and froward.” [Br. Lit.: The Taming of the Shrew]

Lisa, Dame

Jurgen’s petulant wife taken from him in gratitude by the Prince of Darkness. [Am. Lit.: Jurgen in Magill I, 464]

MacStinger, Mrs.

widow; miserable to everyone. [Br. Lit.: Dombey and Son]

Momus

personification of censoriousness, constantly carping, grumbling, and finding fault. [Gk. Myth.: EB (1963) XV, 685]

Peninnah

continually harassed co-wife Hannah about her barrenness. [O. T.: I Samuel 1:6]

Proudie, Mrs.

aggressive, domineering wife of Bishop Proudie. [Br. Lit.: Trollope Barchester Towers in Magill I, 55]

Sofronia

Norina, disguised for mock marriage, pretends to be virago. [Ital. Opera: Donizetti, Don Pasquale, Westerman, 123–124]

Tabitha

Mr. Bramble’s virago sister; bent on matrimony. [Br. Lit.: Humphry Clinker]

Termagant

tumultuous Muslim deity (male); today, a virago. [Medieval Lit.: Espy, 125]

Xanthippe

Socrates’ peevish, quarrelsome wife. [Gk. Hist.: Espy, 114]