Fractiousness is the name for a mood or habit: someone (or a whole group) becomes angry, restless, and hard to handle over small things. A tired child who cries, snaps, and will not be soothed is showing fractiousness. So is a meeting where people keep picking fights and will not settle. The word is a little bookish. In the corridor people say cranky, in a bad mood, or hard to handle; you will meet fractiousness more in novels and news. Though actually, it is not only a flash of anger. It also covers being unwilling to be led — a fractious class, a fractious party — a whole that keeps breaking into little quarrels instead of staying calm together.