dudgeon

1. uncountableA feeling of anger or resentment, especially haughty indignation.

   All gentle folks who owe a grudge / To any living thing, / Open your ears and stay your trudge / Whilst I in dudgeon sing.

   1818, John Keats, “The Gadfly”, in Letter to Tom Keats

   5 more examples

   To crown his discontent, his approach was utterly unnoticed by that capricious damsel. He dashed away in dudgeon from the house at an early hour, certainly less regretted by the maid than by the master of the inn.

   1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XVIII, page 224

   […] I have reason to know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once […]

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “I am Sent Away from Home”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

   You may take the whole damned houseful if you like. Except the jewels. Theyre hired. Will that satisfy you? [He turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon].

   1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act IV, page 167

   [W]ith girls of high and haughty spirit you have to watch your step, especially if they have red hair, like Bobbie. If they think you're talking out of turn, dudgeon ensues, and dudgeon might easily lead her to reach for the ginger ale bottle and bean me with it.

   1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

   In her typical appearances on Fox News, Jeanine Pirro, a former Republican district attorney, reserves her highest dudgeon for castigating liberals and lamenting the demise of law and order.

   2020 May 30, Michael M. Grynbaum, Annie Karni, Jeremy W. Peters, “What Top Conservatives Are Saying About George Floyd and Police Brutality”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

plural dudgeons

1. obsoleteA kind of wood used especially in the handles of knives; the root of the box tree.

   Turners and Cutlers, if I mistake not the matter, doe call this wood Dudgeon, wherewith they make Dudgeon hafted daggers.

   1597, John Gerard, Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes

2. obsoleteA hilt made of this wood.

   And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

3. archaicA dagger which has a dudgeon hilt.

plural Dudgeons

1. A surname.