From the ArcaMax Publishing, Vocabulary Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/vocabulary/s-360481-995828
termagant \TUR-muh-guhnt\ (noun) - A scolding, nagging, bad-tempered
woman; a shrew.
(adjective) - Overbearing; shrewish; scolding.
"For you are the witch Magrit, the horrid harridan, the repulsive
termagant, the fustigant fury, the execrable harpy, the verminous
virago, the loathsome she-wolf." -- Eric Flint, 'Forward the Mage'
Termagant comes from Middle English Termagaunt, alteration of
Tervagant, from Old French. Termagant was an imaginary Muslim deity
represented in medieval morality plays as extremely violent and
turbulent. By the sixteenth century, termagant was used for a
boisterous, brawling, turbulent person of either sex, but eventually
it came to refer only to women.