petulantly

comparative more petulantly · superlative most petulantly

1. In a petulant manner.

   Yet often we react petulantly and prefer to think: Now that I'm in charge, things are going to be different!

   2016, Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, page 129

   3 more examples

   `She loves the man, and he has been pleased to accept her love: where, then, is her sin?' `Truly, oh Holly, thou art foolish,' she answered, almost petulantly.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   A wayward hen, too proud to roost with the other hens on the village church, had come to our coconut palm and was cluck-clucking petulantly, for halfway up the tree she had spied us occupying her roost.

   1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 193

   Her tone was resentful, rejecting a burst of generous emotion on her behalf. She stood twisting and untwisting her bag, making the money jink petulantly, while her dark eyes and vermilion pout repudiated the painted replicas of herself tacked to the wall.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 233

   Synonyms: grudgingly