English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is there a word (noun, verb, adjective -- I don't care which) that describes the quality of being overly defensive of little things?
For example...
Dave: God, Alicia gets hostile when I ask for a little piece of candy, and she guards her stash of pencils like a bulldog.
Jane: Yeah, and she has so much candy and so many pencils anyways!
Dave: She really is ___________.
Thanks so much!
Two words come to mind. The first is "overprotective":
Unduly protective
You could also go with "possessive":
desirous of possessing, especially excessively so
Both of these can fit your idea, but it's quite a specific idea for a single describing word. Sometimes you can't really cram too many ideas into one word and must rely on context or describing words, such as adjectives and adverbs.
I think possessive is the right term.
unwilling to let other people use something you own
He’s so possessive about his new car.
Alice is very possessive about her pencils.
(Longman)
She is just "stingy":
not generous or liberal : sparing or scant in using, giving, or spending
[Merriam-Webster]
