Bitter vs Cantankerous - What's the difference?
bitter | cantankerous | Related terms |
Having an acrid taste (usually from a basic substance).
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*:Long after his cigar burnt bitter , he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped?; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth.
Harsh, piercing or stinging.
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*1999 , (Neil Gaiman), Stardust , p.31 (Perennial paperback edition)
*:It was at the end of February,.
Hateful or hostile.
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*(Bible), (w) iii. 19
*:Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
Cynical and resentful.
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(usually in the plural bitters) A liquid or powder, made from bitter herbs, used in mixed drinks or as a tonic.
* 1773 , Oliver Goldsmith,
A type of beer heavily flavored with hops.
(nautical) A turn of a cable about the bitts.
given to or marked by an ill-tempered nature, ill-tempered, cranky, surly, crabby.
* 1839 , Fraser's magazine for town and country, Volume 20, p618
* 1866 Every Saturday, Volume 2, p355
* 1947 , John Courtenay Trewin, Plays of the year: Volume 47, 195
* 1998 , Pauline Chazan, The moral self, 80
* 2004 , 386 F. 3d 192 - Jacques v. Dimarzio Inc
* 2004 , 386 F. 3d 192 - Jacques v. Dimarzio Inc
* 2007 , Linda Francis Lee, The Devil in the Junior League, p44
* from where is this quotation?
* 2010 ,
Bitter is a related term of cantankerous.
As adjectives the difference between bitter and cantankerous
is that bitter is having an acrid taste (usually from a basic substance) while cantankerous is given to or marked by an ill-tempered nature, ill-tempered, cranky, surly, crabby.As a noun bitter
is (usually in the plural bitters) a liquid or powder, made from bitter herbs, used in mixed drinks or as a tonic.As a verb bitter
is to make bitter.bitter
English
Adjective
(en-adj)Usage notes
* The one-word comparative form (bitterer) and superlative form (bitterest) exist, but are less common than their two-word counterparts (term) and (term).Derived terms
* bitter pill to swallowSee also
* bitter endAntonyms
* (cynical and resentful) optimisticSynonyms
* (cynical and resentful) jadedNoun
(en noun)- Thus I begin: "All is not gold that glitters,
- "Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters .
Derived terms
* brought up to a bittercantankerous
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- she is a cantankerous old maid fretting and snarling over the loss of her beauty.
- The great principle on which the privileges of cantankerous folly and ill-nature found is this: that as we go on through life we grow somewhat cowardly; and if a thing be disagreeable, we just keep out of its way: sometimes by rather shabby expedients.
- I am being cantankerous'''. Some days I feel so '''cantankerous I could take a machine-gun into the streets and shoot down the whole population of Hendon Central; I don't know why.
- By contrast, cantankerous and churlish people are contemptuously independent of others’ opinions, not caring enough about others and their views.
- The cantankerous are those "marked by ill humor, irritability, and determination to disagree." Webster's New International Dictionary 328 (3d ed.1986).
- All things being equal, a cantankerous person or a curmudgeon would be more secure by becoming more unpleasant.
- Nina was thrilled, muttering her cantankerous joy that I was getting out of the house.
- The cantankerous landlord always grumbled when asked to fix something.
- Unfortunately, as Great-Aunt Bert could be a bit cantankerous , they were having to be creative