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-adj)

(obsolete) Having no race or kindred; childless.

(Shakespeare)

Not kind; contrary to nature or type; unnatural.

Lacking kindness, sympathy, benevolence, gratitude, or similar; cruel, harsh or unjust; ungrateful.

* 1950 July 3, Politicians Without Politics'', '' , page 16,

Despite the bursitis, Dewey got in a good round of golf, though his cautious game inspired a reporter to make one of the week?s unkindest remarks: “He plays golf like he plays politics — straight down the middle, and short.”

* 1974 , Laurence William Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse , 3rd Edition, page 175,

We had to learn that to refuse such gifts, which represented serious sacrifice, was more unkind than to accept them.

* 2000 , Edward W. Said, On Lost Causes'', in ''Reflections on Exile and Other Essays , page 540,

In the strictness with which he holds this view he belongs in the company of the novelists I have cited, except that he is unkinder and less charitable than they are.