“Then there was a crunching crash, and the engineer swore peevishly to himself.”
“He seized his unfilled glass, looked into it, and pushed it from him peevishly.”
“I don't understand why Bel Powley, who plays the aristocratic nineteenth-century adolescent Thomasina Coverly, thinks that peevishly shrieking her lines is the best way to convey the passion and urgency of a teen-age girl.”