Adjective

(en adjective)

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

she is a cantankerous old maid fretting and snarling over the loss of her beauty.

* 1866 Every Saturday, Volume 2, p355

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.

* 1947 , John Courtenay Trewin, Plays of the year: Volume 47, 195

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.

* 1998 , Pauline Chazan, The moral self, 80

By contrast, cantankerous and churlish people are contemptuously independent of others’ opinions, not caring enough about others and their views.

* 2004 , 386 F. 3d 192 - Jacques v. Dimarzio Inc

The cantankerous are those "marked by ill humor, irritability, and determination to disagree." Webster's New International Dictionary 328 (3d ed.1986).

* 2004 , 386 F. 3d 192 - Jacques v. Dimarzio Inc

All things being equal, a cantankerous person or a curmudgeon would be more secure by becoming more unpleasant.

* 2007 , Linda Francis Lee, The Devil in the Junior League, p44

Nina was thrilled, muttering her cantankerous joy that I was getting out of the house.

* from where is this quotation?

The cantankerous landlord always grumbled when asked to fix something.

* 2010 ,

Unfortunately, as Great-Aunt Bert could be a bit cantankerous , they were having to be creative

Note: Cantankerous is generally used to describe an unpleasant elderly person in a slightly pejorative manner. However, the term can be used to people in general, livestock, and machinery as well.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Likely to snap or bite.

A snappish cur

*1877 , (Anna Sewell), (Black Beauty) Chapter 22[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Black_Beauty/22]

*:"She came to us snappish and suspicious, but when she found what sort of place ours was, it all went off by degrees

Exhibiting irritation or impatience; curt; irascible.

* 1990 , Nora Roberts, Taming Natasha , Silhouette Books (2011), ISBN 9781459213173, unnumbered page:

She heard her own voice, snappish and rude, and pressed a hand to her head.

* 2011 , Lynne McTaggart, The Bond , Simon & Schuster (2011), ISBN 9781439157947, page 91:

Even though the woman didn't work closely with Barsade, so palpable was her complaining and snappish temperament that it had infected everyone who worked around her.

* 2011 , Mary Doria Russell, Doc , Random House (2011), ISBN 9781400068043, page 173:

There was something underneath her snappish belligerence that made him feel protective and tolerant.