curmudgeon

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Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples

  • "I've always admired a good curmudgeon," she said. —  Little Girl Found
  • Only occasionally, here and there, the voice of the curmudgeon is heard in the land, peeping crossly for that which has been left back there by the roadside. —  WASN'T THE GRASS GREENER A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories
  • "He's just an old curmudgeon, an obstreperous wee git." —  Broken Music, A Memoir
  • Now I'm getting a reputation as a nasty old curmudgeon, so it's not quite as intense as when I was … on the market. ' —  The Night Crew
  • Slashed and hacked as they tried to crawl away. —  Conan the Defender
 

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Words tagged curmudgeon

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Curmudgeon has been looked up 702 times, favorited 14 times, listed 184 times, and commented on 6 times.

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Origin unknown.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. First in this sense in the latter part of the 16th century, also spelled curmudgin; prob. a corruption (by assimilation of adjacent syllables) of cornmudgin, cornemudgin, popularly supposed to be a corruption of corn-merchant, but properly (it seems) *cornmudging, which means ‘corn-hoarding': see cornmudgin. The word thus meant orig. ‘one who withholds corn,' popularly regarded as the type of churlish avarice.
 

Pronunciations
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/kərˈmədʒən/
by American Heritage

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