Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Petulance

Pet′u·lance, Pet′u·lan·cy, n. [L. petulania: cf. F. pétulance. See Petulant.] The quality or state of being petulant; temporary peevishness; pettishness; capricious ill humor. "The petulancy of our words." B. Jonson.

Like pride in some, and like petulance in others. Clarendon.

The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown. Cowper.

Syn. — Petulance, Peevishness. — Peevishness implies the permanence of a sour, fretful temper; petulance implies temporary or capricious irritation.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.