cantankerous

Perhaps derived from earlier contenkerous, from contentious + rancorous.

• IPA^(key): /kænˈtæŋkəɹəs/, /kənˈtæŋkəɹəs/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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cantankerous (comparative more cantankerous, superlative most cantankerous)

1. Given to or marked by an ill-tempered, quarrelsome nature; ill-tempered, cranky, crabby.

   Synonyms: cranky, crotchety; see also Thesaurus:irritable

   • 1839, “The youth of Julia Howard”, in Fraser's magazine for town and country, volume 20, page 618:

     "She is a cantankerous old maid," added another, whom I recognised, by his voice, as a man whose attentions I had put a determined check to not six weeks before: "she is a cantankerous old maid, fretting and snarling over the loss of her beauty."

   • 1978 December 9, Pat M. Kuras, “A Splice of Lesbian Life”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 20, page 11:

     Murphy's Law never proved itself more accurate than at the Nov. 18 film benefit for Persephone Press. With problems ranging from a cantankerous projector to blown fuses, the presentations of Jan Oxenberg's films were blurred, disrupted and played with lapses in their soundtracks.

   • 1998, Pauline Chazan, The Moral Self, page 80:

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

   • 2007, Linda Francis Lee, The Devil in the Junior League, page 44:

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

   • 2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest, page 169:

     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.