Peckish

Definition: hungry or irritable

Both hunger and irritability were mentioned in definitions for this, which means this might be a formal-ish word for the slang “hangry.”

It comes from the root “peck,” meaning what a bird does when they eat. It could be that this represents that the person is just slightly hungry – they don’t want to feast on something, they just want to peck at something.

Why I Looked It Up

From The Imagineering Story, discussing how the pirates in Pirates of the Carribbean were altered to be chasing food rather than women.

The idea was to suggest the pirates were peckish rather than lascivious.