Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Ill-tempered and quarrelsome; disagreeable: disliked her cantankerous landlord.
- adj. Difficult to handle: "had to use liquid helium, which is supercold, costly and cantankerous” ( Boston Globe).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Given to or marked by ill-tempered contradiction or opposition; contradictory; mulish; contentious; cross; waspish; ill-natured: as, “a cantankerous humour,”
Wiktionary
- adj. given to or marked by an ill-tempered nature, ill-tempered, cranky, surly, crabby.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. colloq. Perverse; contentious; ugly; malicious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. stubbornly obstructive and unwilling to cooperate
- adj. having a difficult and contrary disposition
Etymologies
- Perhaps derived from earlier contenkerous, from contentious + rancorous. (Wiktionary)
- Perhaps from Middle English contek, dissension (influenced by such words as rancorous and cankerous), from Anglo-Norman contec, possibly from Latin contāctus, past participle of contingere, to touch; see contact. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Celestino, an anarchist veteran of the Spanish Civil War, lives in cantankerous old age in Paris, complaining to his daughter about their host country, yet not daring to return home for fear of Francoist reprisal.”
“Republicans politely call him "cantankerous" - at least that's what they say in public.”
“By the time Simon dragged ass into the taping, Ellen had some choice gay insults to hurl at him, calling the cantankerous Brit a "prima donna.”
“Mink has been called cantankerous, difficult, morally superior, selfish and egotistical.”
“Getty Images Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who once hosted a foul-mouthed television cooking show, has been called cantankerous and crude.”
“God forbid the Post reporter should "take sides," as that would violate the Golden Rule of "balance," and the "debate" might turn still more "cantankerous" -- or maybe it would get a bit more edifying, as real debate should be.”
WaPo Article on E-Voting "Debate" Treats Corporate Flacks as Righteous Witnesses
“He was called cantankerous, which he probably took as a badge of honour.”
“Barnard, best known as the cantankerous Dr. Hogue in 'Doc Hollywood,' co-starred with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in the 1998 sequel movie 'The Odd Couple II' and saw his son Doug Hughes win a Tony for directing the play 'Doubt.”
“Rex learned much of what he knows about the profession from his father, and while his dad was proud to be called cantankerous and rightly hailed as a defensive genius,”
Jets better learn fast the camera is still on - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home
“Roger Brown discusses, among other things, the influence of language on thought, the evolution of speech and the symbolism in sound -- why, for instance, words like "cantankerous" and "mellifluous" seem to sound like what they refer to.”
The Wall Street Journal: On Scientific Explorations of Human Nature
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cantankerous’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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Verbal_Advantage
paraphrase, ostensible, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 38 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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People are Scum
words that one may enjoy using to describe other people or their actions
degenerate, reprobate, scapegrace, capricious, sycophant, arbitrary, infernal, abominable, iniquitous, nefarious, philistine, sadistic and 39 more...
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If You Can't Say Anything Nice
Negative attributes or actions.
biased, cantankerous, caustic, contumacious, dilatory, disdain, duplicitous, fastidious, fractious, glower, haughty, imperious and 22 more...
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Old words
recalcitrant, grok, Hiatus, shanghai, pervade, diffuse, tempestuous, incorrigible, daunt, cull, Erudite, Assuage and 34 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1523 more...
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words to remember
loquacious, decorous, bombastic, impetuous, pedantic, cantankerous, abscond, sagacity, chiaroscuro, histrionic, mincing, maverick
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Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
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MyList
peter out, fraying, jump on the bandw..., indignation, eclectic, hung up, salutary, hoary, warped, glaring, blue-collar, concomitant and 105 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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Reading Vocab
bleak, batiste, maroon, impiety, aigrette, precious, warrant, ulterior, syllogism, vie, topsy-turvy ago, midnight crush and 180 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cantankerous.
dharma66 my husband 'Bob' just happened to look over my shoulder and he thought I was looking up a word to describe him!!! LOL how apropos! Oct 22, 2008
brtom That’s because you don’t know her as well as I. Ecod! I know every inch about her; and there’s not a more bitter cantankerous toad in all Christendom.
Goldsmith, She Stoops, II Jan 10, 2007