Definition of "umbrage"

Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

1796, George Washington, "Farewell Address", American Daily Advertiser

—He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the whole eventempered person declared, I let slip.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […]

She looked very neurotic, moving in a jerky way, her body giving little twitches of habitual umbrage.

1960, Muriel Spark, chapter 10, in The Bachelors, London: Macmillan

If she knew [a psychiatrist was] observing her son with a view to finding out if he was foggy between the ears, there would be umbrage on her part, or even dudgeon.

1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VI

When the call is over, Cooper thanks her — for leashing the dog, but for also endangering him, for living down to herself, for quite a performance of umbrage.

2020 June 3, Wesley Morris, “The Videos That Rocked America. The Song That Knows Our Rage.”, in New York Times‎

It was a relief to change the cheerful meadow for the dark umbrage of the forest which they now entered.

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXXII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 325

[...] but in the verity of extolment I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable in his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]