startlish

English

Etymology

startle +‎ -ish

Adjective

startlish (comparative more startlish, superlative most startlish)

1. (colloquial) Easily startled; skittish.
   • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:

     He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says: “Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?”

References

• “startlish”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.