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

(er)

Very bad or intense.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Donald Worster , title=A Drier and Hotter Future , volume=100, issue=1, page=70 , magazine= citation , passage=Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse. We may see many such [dust] storms in the decades ahead, along with species extinctions, radical disturbance of ecosystems, and intensified social conflict over land and water. Welcome to the Anthropocene, the epoch when humans have become a major geological and climatic force.}}

Strict or harsh.

Sober, plain in appearance, austere.