What's the difference between fractious and quarrelsome?

Fractious


Definition:

  • (a.) Apt to break out into a passion; apt to scold; cross; snappish; ugly; unruly; as, a fractious man; a fractious horse.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Instead of healing the nation after a fractious referendum he inflamed the situation.
  • (2) Euromaidan was a delayed echo of the social unrest wave , driven by the country's economic failure; it collided with a diplomatic situation that was already fractious over Syria.
  • (3) The sale of Vodafone's 45% stake in its US joint venture to its partner Verizon Communications would end 13 years of an often fractious shared ownership.
  • (4) In a sign of how coalition relations will remain fractious until the election in May 2015, the deputy prime minister said: "You've got a Conservative party now who are driven, it seems to me, by two very clear ideological impulses.
  • (5) It takes a rare company to unite the rest of the fractious British media industry.
  • (6) Which is that when we – my dad driving, my mum alongside, a 16- or 17-year-old fractious me in the backseat, my younger sister and brother – headed down a remote country road, I can’t remember what language the road sign saying DO NOT ENTER was actually in.
  • (7) However, following later abortions at greater than 20 weeks, the rare but catastrophic occurrence of live births can lead to fractious controversy over neonatal management.
  • (8) The two latter kingdoms were reunited in the century that followed – but the presence of a third dynasty suggests that their fractious relationship and subsequent amalgamation may have been more complex than initially thought.
  • (9) Livingstone, the former London mayor, whose fractious relationship with the Standard reached a low point with his Nazi jibe at Jewish reporter Oliver Finegold , remains defiantly unapologetic about the incident and holds a healthy hatred of the title, now majority-owned by Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev.
  • (10) We don’t want to expend too much energy in training because of the humidity but we stay here, we play, and then go back to Manchester for two more weeks of preparation before the first official game.” Mourinho and Guardiola brushed off the question of whether they would shake hands beforehand because of the fractious nature of their rivalry when formerly in charge of Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.
  • (11) Still, while she may be blocked from the top job, the ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party is facing increasing fractiousness within its ranks.
  • (12) But read between the lines of this truncated character sketch and you also get a glimpse of what has been a sometimes fractious career.
  • (13) Multiple fractious arguments about the internet dominate headlines these days, but ultimately they are all battles in a single war.
  • (14) After the creed and some Benjamin Britten, and a blessing and a long round of applause, the man charged with holding together the fractious global Anglican communion as it struggles with the vexed issues of women bishops and same-sex marriage processed out of the cathedral and into the bitterly cold spring afternoon.
  • (15) The left's Monsieur Ordinary will now be called upon to demonstrate extraordinary leadership skills: first to reunite his party, then, in a more problematic and pressing task, to reunite the fractious French left, before launching his presidential campaign.
  • (16) This had been awkward, a fractious occasion which saw players from both sides dismissed before the interval, but it ended up feeling like a show of strength played out largely to a tempo Chelsea imposed.
  • (17) Other speakers nervously approached applause lines not knowing whether they would be booed or cheered by the fractious crowd.
  • (18) Recent collaboration between traditionally fractious teaching unions to oppose cuts to the school rebuilding programme gained more traction than the usual grumbles about pay because it spoke to parents as well as professionals.
  • (19) The entry into the race of the MP for Wallasey, Angela Eagle, puts Merseyside at the centre of what is shaping up to be one of the most fractious Labour contests since the days of Militant in the 1980s.
  • (20) Lygo, who had a fractious relationship with Duncan, has been at Channel 4 this time around since 2003, rejoining after a two-year stint at Channel Five.

Quarrelsome


Definition:

  • (a.) Apt or disposed to quarrel; given to brawls and contention; easily irritated or provoked to contest; irascible; choleric.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She takes him to see a venerated copy in an art gallery, but their prickly, quarrelsome relationship takes a strange turn when he is mistaken by a cafe owner for Binoche's husband.
  • (2) "Late" like the autumnal, musical Eliot of Four Quartets; like the demanding, crepuscular Beethoven quartet the film's characters rehearse for their silver-anniversary performance (String Quartet No 14 in C sharp minor – menacingly referred to as "Op 131"); and "late" in the connected senses of former or dead, which this quarrelsome foursome soon might be if they fail to recover their harmony.
  • (3) An equally quarrelsome perfectionist, only with breasts and less body hair?
  • (4) Quarrelsome behaviour was studied in 48 patients with a litigious-paranoid personality first developing in old age.
  • (5) Watching Agua in Athens, I am surprised by the fact that, while it is full of recognisable Bausch motifs (dancers lining up for a swaggering, quarrelsome beauty parade, or engaged in a quest for affection) some of it proves impossible to follow because so much of the text is spoken in Greek.
  • (6) The author describes the results of clinico-psychopathological study of 68 patients with neurotic states (hysterical, anxiety-phobic) and a psychopath-like syndrome (affective-explosive, hystero-hypochondriac and litigious-quarrelsome) observed long after occupational craniocerebral traumas.
  • (7) Manipulation tactics covaried significantly across self-based and observer-based data sources with personality scales of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Ambitious-Lazy, Arrogant-Unassuming, Quarrelsome-Agreeable, and Calculating and with characteristics of subjects' social environments.
  • (8) A quarrelsome, drinking, childhood home background was often found, at least as regards the attempters, who themselves frequently suffered from emotional conflicts with close contacts, alcohol affliction, criminality, and instability at work.
  • (9) Symptoms like quarrelsomeness, disobedience, abusive language, stealing, truancy, pica, school refusal, enuresis, mental subnormality and poor scholastic performance were significantly more in the LSE group.
  • (10) This is not a little light volunteering in the library – this is heavy-duty hard grind, often quarrelsome, and the people who made it work really are local heroes, whose own lives were changed.
  • (11) I suggest, first, that twice every month the Composer of the Week should be a living person; and, second, that every day some dissenting and quarrelsome voices should be heard (for instance, dismissing Beethoven as boring or Benjamin Britten as shallow).
  • (12) The origin of stomatalgias in psychopathic personalities was accompanied by its decompensation, leading not infrequently to the development of the litigious and quarrelsome personality.
  • (13) The best leaders promote participation and involvement as their core strategy; promote appropriate staff autonomy and accountability for improvement; ensure staff "voices" are encouraged; encourage staff to be proactive and innovative; avoid command and control except in crisis; take action to address systems problems and unnecessary tasks that prevent staff from delivering high quality care; deal effectively and quickly with quarrelsome, rude and disruptive behaviour and poor performance, especially (but not exclusively) among senior staff; and, above all, they model compassion in dealing with patients and staff.
  • (14) In some old patients with a psychogenic quarrelsome paranoiac symptom complex the latter develops by the mechanism of psychic induction.
  • (15) He had always been quarrelsome: now he was soon at odds with those deputies who had been elected in his name.
  • (16) Young Independent Group members were the angries of the art world, the gang was described by one member as "small, cohesive, quarrelsome, abusive".