cantankerous

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: can=tan=ker=ous

CIDE DICTIONARY

cantankerous, a. 

 Perverse; contentious; ugly; malicious.  [1913 Webster]
"The cantankerous old maiden aunt."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

cantankerous, adj. bad-tempered, quarrelsome.

Derivative

cantankerously adv. cantankerousness n.

Etymology

perh. f. Ir. cant outbidding + rancorous

THESAURUS

cantankerous

bad-tempered, bearish, bilious, bitchy, cankered, choleric, churlish, contrary, crabbed, crabby, cranky, cross, cross-grained, crotchety, crusty, cussed, difficult, disagreeable, dour, dyspeptic, excitable, feisty, fractious, froward, grouchy, grumpy, huffish, huffy, ill-conditioned, ill-natured, ill-tempered, irascible, irritable, liverish, mean, morose, ornery, peevish, perverse, petulant, prickly, quarrelsome, snappish, sour, spiteful, spleeny, splenetic, stuffy, sulky, sullen, surly, testy, tetchy, touchy, ugly, vinegarish, vinegary, waspish, wayward, wrongheaded

ROGET THESAURUS

cantankerous

Irascibility

N irascibility, irascibleness, temper, crossness, susceptibility, procacity, petulance, irritability, tartness, acerbity, protervity, pugnacity, excitability, bad temper, fiery temper, crooked temper, irritable, temper, genus irritabile, hot blood, ill humor, asperity, churlishness, huff, a word and a blow, Sir Fretful Plagiary, brabbler, Tartar, shrew, vixen, virago, termagant, dragon, scold, Xantippe, porcupine, spitfire, fire eater, fury, irascible, bad-tempered, ill-tempered, irritable, susceptible, excitable, thin-skinned, fretful, fidgety, on the fret, hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy, tetchy, like touchwood, like tinder, huffy, pettish, petulant, waspish, snappish, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish, sudden and quick in quarrel, querulous, captious, moodish, quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious, pugnacious, cantankerous, exceptious, restiff, churlish, cross, cross as crabs, cross as two sticks, cross as a cat, cross as a dog, cross as the tongs, fractious, peevish, acari=atre, in a bad temper, sulky, angry, resentful, resentive, vindictive, Int, pish!, a vieux comptes nouvelles disputes, quamvis tegatur proditur vultu furor, vino tortus et ira.

Sullenness

N sullenness, morosity, spleen, churlishness, irascibility, moodiness, perversity, obstinacy, torvity, spinosity, crabbedness, ill temper, bad temper, ill humor, bad humor, sulks, dudgeon, mumps, dumps, doldrums, fit of the sulks, bouderie, black looks, scowl, grouch, huff, sullen, sulky, ill-tempered, ill-humored, ill-affected, ill- disposed, grouty, in an ill temper, in a bad temper, in a shocking temper, in an ill humor, in a bad humor, in a shocking humor, out of temper, out of humor, knaggy, torvous, crusty, crabbed, sour, sour as a crab, surly, moody, spleenish, spleenly, splenetic, cankered, cross, crossgrained, perverse, wayward, humorsome, restiff, restive, cantankerous, intractable, exceptious, sinistrous, deaf to reason, unaccommodating, rusty, froward, cussed, dogged, grumpy, glum, grim, grum, morose, frumpish, in the sulks, out of sorts, scowling, glowering, growling, grouchy, peevish.