Sharply but briefly stung into annoyance or pique by something provoking..
Sharply but briefly stung into annoyance or pique by something provoking.
Nettled is the sting of the group — it names a sharp but passing annoyance, the small smart of being provoked rather than a slow chafe or a fretful sulk. The metaphor is alive in the word: just as the plant leaves you smarting and itching, to be nettled is to be pricked, often by a pointed remark, a slight, or someone's pompous attitude. It is more pointed and reactive than irked or peeved and shades toward pique; the provocation is usually external and frequently interpersonal, and the feeling is acute but short-lived rather than settled like resentment or disgruntlement. Register is literary and slightly formal — a writer's word more than a casual one.
Past-participle adjective "vexed, irritated," c. 1400, figurative use of the past participle of the verb nettle "to apply nettles, to beat with nettles" (c. 1400), from the noun nettle, the stinging plant (Old English netele, from Proto-Germanic *natilon). The figurative sense "irritate, provoke" is recorded from the same date, c. 1400.
The figurative "irritated, provoked" sense has been present from the verb's earliest figurative use (c. 1400) and has remained stable for over six centuries; Grose's 1785 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue already glosses "nettled" as "teized, provoked, out of temper."